Halfway to Anaheim by Glen Armstrong

We wrote obscenities in the dust
that covered parked cars
to make the purple sky blush pink

while our parents rested up
for that last push to Disney.

Our cocks and hells and fucks and such
seemed no more real
than the Wigwam Motor Lodge,

no more real than Peter Pan
and what made “the red man red.”

If we’d had sticks and stones
we would have tried to break
that southwest landscape,

children more bored than angry,
nearly broken ourselves
from the cross-country trek.

Flicking locusts from the sky,
we could almost see
the Magic Kingdom.

Desensitized to the magic of words,
we could not appreciate
the irony that removing

some of the dust
from those cars

with our fingers
would make the cars
dirtier.

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Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cream City Review.