Road Tar

    A kid said you could chew road tar¹

    if you got it before it cooled，

    black globule with a just-forming skin.

    He said it was better than cigarettes.

    He said he had a taste for it.

    On the same road， a squirrel

    was doing the Watusi to free itself

    from its crushed hindquarters.

    A man on a bicycle stomped² on its head，

    then wiped his shoe on the grass.

    It was autumn， the adult word for fall.

    In school we saw a film called Reproduction.

    The little snake-father poked³ his head

    into the slippery future，

    and a girl with a burned tongue was conceived.