Caballerial

By Larry Narron

                       I managed to fail
           ninth grade English lit
                       with a curling

           issue of Thrasher
or Big Brother hidden
           behind the paper

                       bag-covered textbook
           in my lap, the one with
                       the abridged version

           of Great Expectations.
Our lives are mostly
           as small as a thumb

                       nail photo
           sequence unfolding
                       in a borrowed skate mag

           whose pages are all
falling out, one by one,
           like the gray hairs of old men.

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