We sat cross-legged peering into the fire
with a circle of tents at our back.
Flickering coals spotlighted the face
of the scout whose turn it was to talk.
Sucking on cigarettes, we voted on who
was the raunchiest girl in our class,
then swore on a rusty Swiss Army knife
that none of us would ever get hitched.
We wondered about our mothers and fathers
and swapped notes on our budding sisters.
By the time the sunlight began to trickle
through the treetops, we crawled back into
our tents coughing like cranes and fell
with swollen imaginations into heavy sleep.
Norbert Krapf, Somewhere in Southern Indiana (Time Being Books, 1993)
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