The Woolly Mammoth

Remember back when you were young?

You thought you’d get a diploma

the old-fashioned way.

The first voice of a new generation

screaming, “Get me out of here”

or “I want to go home.”

I heard it down hallways

before we rolled dice

on the bathroom floor.

I heard it like a slave hears

new religion raining from the trees.

From homeroom to the Principal’s office,

they tried to take it out, arrest your rage,

but it stunk up every vein in your body

like a clogged sewer,

and you were never afraid to lose it.

“In the womb,” you told me once,

“I was unhappy even then.”

And then there were the streets.

The bus station in Newark

and the park two blocks down

where the runaways raid

the pigeon coops and

they find dead bums

and cigarette butts dragged out.

It was like a vacation home right on a river,

under buildings like dead peaks so the sun

never shined into your eyes.

It was so you,

every move planned for the great story.

Those were the days you were always

looking forward to.

The envy of every fool.

You wrote your own legend

and it kept me amused.

I used to think that was pretty cool

but I’m invisible now,

I’ll fade away

like the woolly mammoth

but you …

you’ll live on forever as

some kind of Cinderella,

or a pin-up girl.

By Scott Laudati