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Syntax Issue 10
Denver Syntax
{the rendering}
  suzi q. smith


I remember the summer
we smoked dried bamboo;
found it growing
or dying in the alley,

we spent afternoons hiding
in the garage with the caved-in roof
burning Barbie dolls and GI Joes,
old radios we found in garbage cans.

That summer,
before we turned all gray and steely
we were sparks and giggles and gone,
matches pinched between fingers.