325/365 Randy C.

Mud-pasted boots, brown as barn straw
blue jeans dirtier than my mother's rags

two plaid shirts: cotton for coolness, wool for warmth
crusty-gray smudges under each ear

tangled black hair, shaved up back, flopped bangs front
over watery-blue eyes

First grade: your smell, I learned, was
the deep reek of poverty