Decades of rewriting memories
produces a fictional clarity
on childhood trauma
placed in the autobiography.
It all comes back
while endlessly talking
to no one in particular
at the fairgrounds.
The devil was never in the details.
The devil was in the inappropriate touch
and threat-enforced silence
of those who did not care about transgression.
Each neighborhood firework that spikes the sky
or gunshot that punctuates the night
reinvigorates the old shock
and trauma skitters memory bank to nerve endings.
It is not the spangled lights
but the explosive’s radiating displacement wave
that rattles the spine up to the skull
pushing a soul out the top.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 