Manchester

Promise the whole town drunk in celebration,
the girls I loved in high school still eighteen,
Hanson's band playing Sousa in the park
and a holiday declared for miles of farms.
Prove those boys who broke my arm never prospered,
the worst bully dead of cancer years ago.
Promise bad cops run out of town, an empty jail,
clean taverns allowed to never close.
Leave the river as it was: wild trout
at Bailey's Ford. Old men fishing from the bridge.
I'd come back bold as sky to happy times
and buy drinks for friends my childhood never had.

Another letter home. We'll pretend this town
was never harm nor grief for me, that years
of degradation didn't follow. We'll say
I never drank to excess nor begged for love
from Omaha to Olney, that when I stuttered propositions
girls were kind. Let's try the truth. I prefer
to think of trout downstream from town, arc of line,
sky easy on the eyes. Say I'm free of shame,
that whiskey makes me sad by choice, one cheerleader
leaps happily in my heart. After years away
I can forgive any face I have forgotten.
Say I fish odd lakes without regret.