San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Lalo Kikiriki
SNAPSHOTS, 1985
for Charlie

It was the day we climbed to the back
of Runyon Canyon
and up a rusted drain pipe to the road.
Was that the day you learned
that love is pain,
loving that place, with the sweat burning into your eyes?
If you were five, then I was thirty-seven,
on that white-hot day you declared yourself
King of the Mountain.
There on the steps we took each other's pictures,
gritty and triumphant in the breeze
through the brand new park we championed,
you and I.
Look at us grinning, bare-kneed in summer shorts.
That was a day for ice cream in the car,
driving one-handed down Sunset Boulevard,
licking, licking, licking sticky fingers.
So proud and foolish, Charlie – that was the day!