April 10: Kankakee by Mark Neely

Kankakee

Real boys lurked
in Pontiacs and spat

about the jacked-up
smoke tax, smacked

packs in their palms,
lit crooked sticks

they stole
from 7-11 jobs

with just one match
like we scouts

were rumored to light
our campfires.

—Mark Neely (Delaware County)

This poem originally appeared in Beasts of the Hill (Oberlin College Press, 2011).  Mark Neely is the author of Beasts of the Hill (Oberlin College Press, 2012), winner of the FIELD Poetry Prize. His chapbook, Four of a Kind, won the Concrete Wolf chapbook prize and was published in 2010. He directs the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University.