Glossy Magazines

I suppose summer days
        along South Boulevard
where it passes in front of the elementary school
were no hotter than anywhere else
        along the Bible Belt
and maybe no quieter than any other small town
       neighborhood 
at noon in July
when kids like me were inside
away from the white ambient, shadowless heat
under which I rode home from Center Street
where The Bike Man lived
and steered my own up into the u-shaped driveway
toward a pile of glossy magazines, and,
kicking with one foot the pages while straddling the 
        crossbar
looked around the empty school yard
at living room windows
and the Antioch Baptist Church across the street 
trying to decide
how to get them out of sight
to peruse and perhaps
to keep a select one or the other.
So I raced home and back again
paper bag sailing in the wind
returning to that same spot
even quieter and more empty
than before.