Rewind through all

the vert to the part

when you were innocent—all the years.

            You've since counted them

            like stairs, slipped out,

sacked on the double-

kinked handrail of time. Fast-

            forward to when

             you stuck on the hurricane,

got pitched, faceplanted

at the foot of El Toro.

            Recall how your friends

            eclipsed most of the sky

as they crowded you,

as the warm trickle

            of blood from your ear

            relayed passing

seconds to the concrete.

From that angle, it was clear:

            even in daylight, the moon

          still managed to shine.

Hung there so low

in the sky. Like a perfectly

            dipped back Smith.

Larry Narron grew up in San Diego County and received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley. His poems have appeared in Phoebe, Slice, and The Brooklyn Review, among others. They've been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best New Poets.