drunk in public

Left by with the lore of yellowed books,
dwindling pennies into cardboard soaked with vomit
a passing police officer noticed nothing but my words
in the dark glen
off the side of gravel
where we left our last shovel
that we took from those grave robbers
that had smashed our car windshield
in the vine traced cemetery.

Elementary school where we used our lips
when the fey noon aides
were wet with rage and drugged,
caustic lessons in subtraction
salved by the slit of paper cuts
from heavy tomes
that proclaimed an easy arithmatic
unattached to the body.

Where we raised our flags
in the noontime sun
across those baseball fields
was where we showed our IDs
after the work of teacher's pens
scrawling blood red notations
in the margins
of vocabulary.

Could have spoken
in eloquent lore
about the history of sherrifs
but we'll leave that one up
to the court.