"Platinum " (by Christopher Polliwood )

Some years ago

Michael Jackson released Thriller.

I stared at its gatefold

with a friend in a trailer.

 

I liked my friend

but I loved his sister.

As the night ticked on,

I'd be drunk as a sailor

 

by a fire road culvert

on a dry river

where the pine trees were tall

and the stars taller

 

and the stones of the riverbed

were perfectly white, or

seemed to be so

as they were touched with no water.