on claremont drive there is a group of: kids
young gods sipping at the pavement nectar
knees knocked green with grass stains
     hoodlums ,    ma says

they gather in the whisper-time of the evening
leather coats and fringe skirts like second third fourth skins
(butterflies on a deer carcass,
     i think)

they pass around brown bottles in brown bags
with bear eyes and snake smiles,
lounging on the wilson’s lawn until mr. comes out and yells
     <>

they scatter with shoulders back, tails swaying.
not even trying ! not even trying to conceal
their utter indifference for the property laws of santa clara county
     one of the girls has the same socks that i do

sometimes they all look the same (like cookies) and sometimes
they look so different that i have to step out from my eye corner
and it’s a bit like being in a consortium of blazing suns *
     *these suns are sixteen and smell like dollar-store licorice

we hear them whooping in the night sometimes
a disgrace, says mrs.: their parents should take better care of them
partyanimals! troublemakers! peacechewers! quietkillers!
     residential area residential area residential area resi

i wish i could say watching them is like going to the zoo—
contained creatures in glowing glass cages eating sterilized meat
     it’s really not, it’s more like a
            more like a circus? beaten bruised dancing horses whinnying and biting their trainers because its easier to kick the head of the man with the whip rather than racing out of a striped tent and into an unknown night, but what about the girl who spent her allowance money on the $5 ticket to see the horses dance, shouldn’t she get her money’s worth? because it’s really not fair that the horses get to rear and the bears get to bite and the two-headed lady gets to scream twice as loud, when she has to sit in aisle seat twenty-B and watch them so close to her and not get to join in and

ma calls the neighborhood watch on a steaming hot saturday
and the stallion studs are packed away in electric blue lights
and the streetlights look the same as they always do
     and i close the blinds.