Prestidigitation, Pensylvania

Magic in its backwoods,
a bloody star in a lit sky
that we call anywhere
so long as it isn’t here.
Follow it and succeed,
stay and be damned.
Joe and Tammy on the school roof
gravel biting their sweaty palms.
Joe’s 19 and been to college
about twenty miles away.

After Tammy reclothes her
soggy bottom half (pale in the moon)
he gives her the news:
what we just did? It’s called
a labial-digital fricative. He laughs.
She says, you’re the dumbest
fuck of every dumbfuck that
ever left this town. She snaps
her belt to with a motion denying
further talk and climbs the steam
pipe down. Joe lies back and smokes.
He thinks about Jesus and Intro to
Philosophy. Tammy’s not set up
for these questions. He’s born
to the idiocy of education. Jesus
Buddha Gandhi Peter Singer Thomas
Kuhn Aleister Crowley Ken Wilber, shit.

There’s no savior in this town,
just Tammy’s changeling eyes
and some rare magic that transmutes
kid to man before he’s ready.