Trestle Jumping

We’re hot shit until we stand at the edge of the trestle 
and peer at the shallow creek weaving its way through the sage. 

We wear loose unbuttoned shirts that flap like maimed wings, 
stolen from a dead man’s house that smells of gun oil and mold. 

No one claimed his body from the county coroner. No one 
cared when we broke the windows. That’s how time moves 

out here. Our fathers are busy, working hard gambling 
the groceries, rolling brand-new pickups bought on credit, 

piss drunk in an irrigation ditch. Trains used to crawl over 
these tracks, hoppers bloated with coal, now we worm our way 

across the rotting wood, dodging spikes, second guessing 
the weight. We imagine what it would be like to kiss 

the open-air seconds of freefall.