Speaking of first loves,
what about that torrented copy
of Girl Skateboard’s “Yeah Right”,
that we watched like a royal wedding,
on Mr. Schoonover’s Science Lab computer,
during free period, the intro
with the edited out decks and the skaters
hovering on the air, their kickflips
and shove-its more nonchalant
than they have ever been. But really,
it was always the coup’d’grace, the cameo,
Owen Wilson for all of three minutes.
The lingo leaking from his lips in a high score
of credibility. Front salad, back salad,
front blunt. Yeah right! Spanky blitzed that
in the Emerica Video. Of course
we knew nothing of Texas switches,
couldn’t discern how the camera panned
away so Koston could slip in, his wig
almost falling off as he hits the rail.
Nor how it was done to us again,
the magical exit and the magical reentry.
Like learning Shakespeare, Wilson
said of it later. Harder than any other lines
he hit. A method process
we shuffled through on Tech Dec’s
and Pro Skater 3. Only one us
had a real skateboard, could do anything
on it. Mostly it sat in the garage
near the woodpile, awaiting
the fate that came for all things
during those years. Our soliloquies
giving way to feeble or fakie,
to the fire and the flames.
Eli Karren is a poet and educator from Vermont. His works can be found in swamp pink, At Length, and the Harvard Review.
