Mung

Where we would one day
in the locker room
talk of girls and Vietnam,

Today,
hanging, squatting,
entwined in the bars of the jungle gym
We talked about the most horrible

Thing

we could imagine
Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine

“Mung” someone said. This:

Hang a dead opossum on the clothesline
for two weeks
in the middle of summer.
And then, and then
and then
Slap the bloated falling apart thing
in the stomach
with a 2 X 4.
Whatever comes out of its nose
and mouth
is

Mung.

Where we would one day
in the locker room
talk too loudly about
those things of which we were

most afraid,

Today,
we laughed
and hollered, “Gross!” and “Yuck!”
and laughed at the unimaginable
before recess was
over.

by David B.Weber 2006