SK8RZ

It had stopped being cool when I was a kid
and became cool again as soon as I was not.

The only thing I know for sure
is that as practiced now it is a kind of low flight.

I know that you can move by grinding
or by sliding.  That’s the same as when you’re an adult.

I think some trick is called “gleaming the cube.”
Or perhaps there isn’t.  Some things are meant to be

obscure or meaningless. and that’s the same
as when you’re an adult.

But to fly like that, to ride handrails and swoop
through bowls and off ramps and dry pools?

To be in love with the thick clack of deck
and truck on hard surfaces?

To fall, again and again, and still smile and see it all
as joy and fun and purpose despite the blood and fracture?

Somehow, the appeal of that last bit escapes me
as I sit here looking out the window

at them rocking out.  “Damn kids,” I say.
Damn them and their flying where all I can do is plod.