By PAUL LIMA
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My best friend and I
held captive by summer doldrums
are the only hostages
left in sauna-city.

But we don't care
as we sit in the schoolyard
shooting marbles across asphalt
that steams like breath in winter.

We don't care
as we suck on purple popsicles,
gulp ice-cold Coke from squat, green bottles
and crack jokes about dumb teachers
and goof-ball kids gone to camp.

We don't care
as we make each other laugh
with gale-force bluster:
like when I break wind
as he swigs his Coke
and he howls so hard he can't
stop fizzing soda from escaping
through flared nostrils.

Doubled-over by laughter,
I almost pee myself
and can't save my popsicle
as it slips off its stick
slops on my shorts
and drools down my tanned legs.

As our guffaws echo off
the school's brick walls
and fill the fenced-in yard
we declare "Truce!"
and resume our marble war.

Then he lets lose
a protracted belch
and we hoot again
oblivious to storm clouds overhead,
until the deluge breaks
and heaven shocks us with electric bolts
that short-circuit our frivolity.

But we don't care
as we skip home thru instant mud
puddles like two swamp things
emerging from a bog.

We don't care
Marbles forgotten
on cooling asphalt
Mementoes to mark our passing.

We don't care.
Conspiratorial comrades
an arm around each other
plotting future escapades.

We don't care,
unaware the historic cycle.

Just around the season:
Fall.