At fifteen we’d stash

bottles of flavored liqueur in

ceiling tiles like lightning bolts

above storm clouds, a kind of

priceless currency blooming

overhead. We scored them

on bikes under night, ducking

into shuttered restaurants atop

scuffed sneakers after days

stretched thin with algebra, study hall

shit talk, football practice, twelve of us

pedaling furiously to the arpeggio

of cricket chirp and clinking duffle

bag brimming with stolen alcohol

abandoned when the chowder house

and diner closed down—the game changer,

we called it, giddy with excitement,

no longer bound by older

siblings or slantwise parents

sliding us sixers. We lived

for fall nights, that invisible

shadow life—Big Al all curly hair

and dumb grin, Dave draped in

baggy gym shorts gripping

a two-liter, Kurt and Sam P

and Seany wrestling on the busted

basement couch, all of us lit up

with energy, waiting for parents

to doze off so we could slip out

screen doors, muffling chuckled

whispers. We’d pour dusty booze

into plastic cups, stumble through

woods to beaches deserted

with dusk, laugh alongside

neighborhood girls who tucked

bottles in backpacks whenever

we turned. We knew—we never

cared—vodka and powdered 

lemonade and our stomachs hot

with admission. The girls shot smiles

and faux-scolding; we hid behind

crass jokes. The harvest moon shone

so bright. A day disappeared. But the sand

held us, each grain slipping, catching

our scuffed knuckles, smeared in bruises.

---

Caleb Jagoda talks in aphorisms until those closest to him demand he stop—but hey, you know what they say: Buy the ticket, take the ride. Caleb is a poet, journalist, and MFA candidate at the University of New Hampshire, where he works as managing editor for Barnstorm Journal. His work has appeared in Blue Earth Review, Polaris Literary Magazine, and Down East Magazine. He lives in Dover, New Hampshire.