MARLTON MAN
The loam and the subsoil are all alike - a nothing
of sand and muck. Not so many miles from the
end of the Barrens that people still talk of the
ways of old - the marl, the peat, the fir forests
collected at the edges of roads. I used to know
all that too : Blackwood days and nights, things
rolled over into brotherhoods and frights. The deep,
dark pine woods we'd walk, the sounds of an
evasive silence in a farmhand's truck, a stranger's
car passing - only occasional things they were.
Mornings in bright sun, we'd walk out and, I still
remember see here and there along the old sand
road girls' panties hanging from a limb. 'That's
how they do it now,' you'd said, lover's lanes
and old, dark roads, you get lucky with your
girl in your car, you hang her bloomers from
a tree limb before you go. Unwritten code,
you know.' I did and I didn't understand.
Blackwood was full of that. Like boys in
the know, we too just pretended.
-
I don't miss the dense old Jersey nights -
others have come since, to talk and sing about
all this - the Springsteens and Bon Jovis, the
Pattie Smiths, all in a row - pretending at their
drama, screaming musical chants but knowing
nothing really. Now, it's better all silence.
Panties from trees, hearts from a stone,
and me, and you, alone.
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