I drove past the old
skate center today.
It’s been closed down
since we were children,
the door tagged with graffiti
and the parking lot
full of wet pot holes,
but I remember being ten
and begging
my parents to take me.
I never skated a day in my life.
Wheels on my feet have
always terrified me,
and I was good enough at falling
without a free pass for gravity.
I just went for the arcade,
a fistful of quarters jangling
in the pockets of my shorts,
for bad nachos and diet cokes,
and for you,
a gangly girl
with bandaids on her knees,
with red braids and braces,
pirouetting to pop music
on rented rollerskates.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
