Leisure Lee


from the ABC set Smallvilles : Real US Towns, Imagined Voices

Leisure Lee city Massachusetts Alt 1515 Pop.4024

A stream outside the city limits:
boys and girls just a-strollin’ by;
lend one ear to the blacktop noise,
dedicate the other to the hoopoe cry.
A hunnert empty packs of potato chips,
styrofoam cups on the rude trackside.
‘Didja hear ‘bout that city girl?
Boston or sumpin’, the one that died?’
Girls draw closer in the cooling night.
Boys think of ways to embellish the lie.
‘Lost sightuv her beau, the old folks say:
jes' up'n disappeared in the wink of an eye.’
Boy winks at boy over girl’s shoulder,
girls wish that boys would just act older:
or show more imagination than that same ol’ lie.

edit Sep 2009

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