A car turns
onto Rua Luciano Cordeiro
and beeps get out of the way!
at a teenager – spiked hair, red
sweatshirt hood down. He makes
manly gestures, shouts in a deepening
voice, fiercely throws his water bottle
at the retreating car. The bottle titters
down the cobble stone road and
bounces boyishly off the rear bumper.
The teenager looks back, muttering,
flicks up his hood, shrinks into it.
The pedestrians, paused on the pavement
mid-crossing, have tennis heads,
looking left and right, at teenager and car.
Teenager, walking on now but still
looking behind, seeing if the car
or his boyhood’s coming back to him.
——
Matthew James Friday has had poems published in the following UK and worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Bolts of Silk, The Brasilia Review, Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), Dreamcatcher, Earth Love, Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Gloom Cupboard, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), The Journal, The New Writer, Orbis, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom, Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), The Peacock Journal, Pens on Fire, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Red Ink, South Bank Poetry Magazine, The Dawntreader, We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore) and Writing Magazine.