A poem to distract (you and me) from fear (yours and mine)

9/3

(a Southern dithyramb)

Kids grow up in the usual ways,
driving cars too fast, buying packs of cigarettes.
going off and not coming home at Thanksgiving.

This is normal.

I wonder why their parents, always running yellow lights and flicking ashes in beer cans,
disapprove when their daughters leave in tight jeans
to visit Grandma June's house,
where Daddy ain't been since three years back.