For years the school bus took the same path

past your grandmother’s house—just uphill from yours

each day the fields flickering past,

sometimes filled with corn,

autumn filled with hay bales

that long swinging arm of the sprinkler

tempting in the summer heat, always running

as we’d drive back to your house

on the way home from town

and one year, many years later

homesick, soul-wandering spied dandelions

growing, a trove near the treeline

and parked near the ditch to sit for a moment

with my thoughts all running rampant

when they turned to you, and childhood

how second grade best friends lived extremes

up and down the hill, across the trampoline

riding top speed on gravel roads

I used to ride my bike to you,

we lived close enough to each other

it was possible for my little body to pedal

itself there and back without exerting

what it can’t spend

what it doesn’t have, maybe still lacks

the dandelions far across the field

yellow bright mirage in the distance

I would walk there now if you’d meet me.

————————————–

Nicholas Bonarski called us from Grand Rapids, MI.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems