Page 88
By Jack Joseph Smith
88
with the Balls Feet and fingera went high kicking and clawing for the balls It was
the death game for the child aristocrats We played it all the way, .and the mill
town kids loved it, Kill beeame a word thet was in our eyess We fought to the death
and hated the man with the ball, Vengepnee was the sigh, that captured our eyes
and strung our hearts-outy like the beating drym of structions Kill him, 111
hims Ha-hay running with the wind pealing through your uncovered layerss Get hing
Smash him downs I'bI' get him first next times “he spirit of the wolf burned insides
You eould’ elose your fist and cateh him on the Tun, and if you were lueky, lift
him in the air abhbstrstriping the ligements in your arms Biting was invited dows :
deep below the seresming, Ruming in a pack and curving with. the cirele he ereated
in hia wide turn) Kill him Letting yourself fly at his heals, sometimes: missing
in your cast away chance, and sometimes catehing him solid below the knsea and
hearing his shoulder crack the ices When I had the ball I went into the evil’ dance :
; wo, Tongues
of a god, I was a women moving my hips with the music of their toungss So quick ‘
I was, and with a freedom, unknowns No wordss.no laws,, nothing could touch meg I
wented the ball forever im my vanishing movements with a barren sea of mouths
opening like monster waves white with streaks in the black nights I cold feel
their movements following my every touch with the partion of lifes Glory be to
the boy who ia Aranes the longest, until his limgs churn the gasp of unequaled i
exhaustion, There was little Beaver panting with us all, Beaver was my friends i
I loved him, We had fought in the snow once from the time of the chill morning, '
until the sux was going down above eur heated loins, We were laughing so hard, |
that we had ip put toush each other to send one anouther falling on our heades :
I watched him running with Blackie, the For, Tank and Larry the Mouse, I would
swivel and turn, my face feeling the wind open to my eyea,.and I would speed on ‘
|