Visiting Tony

There’s a hill by the fence-line
at this memorial place
where ants scramble and tote grass
and leaves.

We’re tackling each other, you
over my shoulder
and we grass-stain our way
down the hill
just to scramble
up again.

I hear honks
at a distant intersection
your too-fast
sports car muscling its way
and who can wait

for the old sounds, so first I stopped
at Prima and now there’s
pizza scent on my stained shirt.

The pinball and Pacman machines
still work, and in case
you’re wondering
I still can’t bowl, but unlike you
don’t bounce twelve pounds
down the lane. Now
a jackhammer wounds
the silence in this place. The way
our fathers’ whistles split
our conspiring whims.

How you escaped. How I
still struggle
with who leaves and when.