THE PLEASANT STREET PHANTOM
...down dark sidewalks under the streetlamps...
The Pleasant Street Phantom (us poor boys’
Abominable Snowman) cannonballed out
of the wild blue blazes, ran ripshod through
the flashlight-tag magic of the lightning-bug
twinkledark— its hair-raising hellhound
howl sending us all into spin-tizzies…
turned us into torch-wielders mobbing after him
down dark sidewalks under the streetlamps all
gasps, shrieks and belly-giggles trying to catch
him, catch a good glimpse, put a name on him…
on it… and vanished right before our eyes under
the old apple tree… only a voice remaining…
taunting us ventriloquently, his wild spook-dark
war whoops from the north, south, east and west--
and years later, this indelibly delicious myth… this
neighborhood urban legend, longed-for during the light…
turned out (eventually) (in time) to be
(by confession) only Gaylon Richards…
next-door-neighbor track star
ten years my senior who once,
under a blue-afternoon-sky-sun,
raced me down Pleasant Street Hill
(him on footand me on my bike!) and
smoked me by three bicycle lengths!
