graduation

Turn that backpack upside down, empty
out old scantrons, notes received in class,
throw out out any candy wrappers or
receipts, obligations or promises that
still may linger within its polyester frame.
Replace them with something more useful, 
like air, or an umbrella, or a book that makes
you think, a lighter, a blanket to bear the cold
with, as your distant ancestors did while they
waited for the wolves to approach. Cut a narrow
path through your backyard, the neighbors’ yard,
the street corner, the cul de sac where kids play
roller hockey in tattered jeans, liquor stores and
restaurants run by ethnic families, office buildings
run by corporations that do not bleed when 
they are cut, to downtown, where the secret rituals 
of the hobos in the park late at night, are finally
revealed to you. Do they make fire by deserted
train tracks like they do in lifetime movies, or is it
another false image in the series of false images the
television feeds to you, everything heavily edited to be
flawless, infomercial products that fix every problem
you could solve by yourself. Work your way through
shrub-covered hillsides, chaparral, deserts, mountains,
valleys, through the rains, the suns, the moons, the stars, 
until you are so acutely aware of each miniscule change
 in the celestial system that you can predict a new
beginning even after the Mayan calender ends.