Red Popsicles Poem by Daniel Karbon

Kid killers, tiny little soldiers
Sharpen their glances on basketball courts
Bring themselves gasping to color atop borrowed backseats
Harden themselves under the strop of the overseers
And so the fruits grow bitter, like the water
Some don't make it
But that's a given.

Kids my age spill shocking blood and fire through the streets
In the schools, the movie theaters, the bedrooms,
The throats the hearts the fingertips
Some do it for money
Some for madness
Many simply for protection

A honey bee buzzes lazily around the whiskey still
Sunset is kind to the country and all of its mixed-up creatures
Badger is bleeding from his eyes
But mountain lion is still hungry, so that's something.
A boy stares blankly at his father's rifle
Leaning there, well-behaved, in the corner by the ice-box.
He has been taught to use it
To make the fire go where he wanted it to
To make the fire count
To hurt like he meant it
Like he had to mean it.

But there were still popsicles in the ice-box
And they were cold
So he cracked open the treasured mystery
And tore off a red one.
Because he loved the red ones.

He leaped down broken steps
To catch old sun on its way out
The dry grass bit at his feet
As he stepped lightly upon the Earth
And the boy tasted cherries
As night came to the valley.