September 10,

2002

 The high school is one block south and the middle school one block north. The sidewalks are crowded with teenage dreams: unfought fistfights stuck like gum to the new-poured concrete, dozens of unrequited crushes caught in the branches of the trees, the old barn you used to sneak into to read, and of course the house where your dad still lives, exactly on the other side of the block from the one I visit, always ten minutes away, or less, if I could fly over the clogged stream between them.