on a car ride to florida

It comes back to me,
like a reflection through a tarnished mirror
warped from age,
surely tired
from telling people what
they want to hear:

when he was just a few years older than me

his friends, and he, would take
street cleaner bristles,
two each,
and pop open the chain locks
on chain-linked fences
to walk the pipes below the town

and shared their secrets,
the important kind,
the ones you keep to your grave.

When we got home he gave me the
door knob from the broken-down garage door
so I could practice.

Like father, like son.