By Gabriel Mundo
During summer
we stole the fruit
from our neighbor’s
lemon tree and wished
they were oranges
And we threw rocks
the size of teeth at cars
And we existed
at a temperature
that could only be
lowered by watermelon
And we talked about the girls
who liked the boys
that wore heavy gold
crosses but never
seemed to go to church
And we thought of ways
to get those girls
to like us instead
And we grew mustaches
coarse as grains of pepper
And we fought
for the sake of bruises
And we drove our parents’
cars while they slept
And we waddled home
inflated by cheap beer
followed by trails
of our mother’s cooking
that left our stomachs
empty as fire
And we forgot
every day
was getting shorter
And we forgot
the fall was coming
About Gabriel Mundo
Gabriel Mundo is from Highwood, Illinois and is currently a student at CarrollUniversity in Wisconsin. In the spring of 2019, he served as Poetry Editor for Portage Magazine. His most recent work can be found in Nightjar Review, TintJournal, Plainsongs, and Burning House Press. In the fall of 2019, he was selected as a finalist for the Scotti Merrill Award.