Cereal Serial (historic modesty & stolen fate) — an oneiric composition Read-Along

oneiric composition six

	What happened was 

cereal was brought up somehow in that way which accidental subject matter arises from unrestrained tangents allowed to randomly fold into the early evening-aperitif air —  

uninhibited conversation akin to house dust blown off a mantle display 

collection of points in time passed so frequently, 

room to room, day to day, 

they are forgotten-by — 

thoughtless familiarity gradually powdered with particulates of organic fallout unseen unless betrayed

naturally — 

harvested in a cursory blade of dusky nostalgic light. 

	This brought-to-mention a small treasure chest ordered from a Cap’n Crunch box in nonage recalled now complete with a tiny padlock & key, 

mind-feeling the die-cast of faux wood & straps belting the lid & body with a revenant fingertip drawn along its molded relief & even going back so far 

as to appear in the further-divergent present 

as maturely thinking it probably had lead or something in it because, from here, everything now was a toxin then — 

then: an almost-unimaginable half-c adrift, yet suitable if projected comfortably 

convoluting smoke of held drags exhaled to release the pressure of having-been —  

through it all, relived in disconcerting survival without the fifty-fifty rawness of what to open up to, dependent on fundamental odds. 

(note: cardinal = hinge)

	That summoned back some brands’ mascots: figurines of undeterminable dimensions living from commercials & product containers, 

even the little boxes of cereal: 

single-serve, where you had to separate the perforated top using a spoon handle like a dull knife & pour in milk which, 

absorbed in memory, 

led to a childhood ranch-style in Modesto Calif where I ordered a set of five character-dolls vaguely remembered as elf/animal hybrid bendable creatures made of plastic & wire 

& finding just three of them inside the front door below a mail slot 

not understanding how fulfillment & delivery actually work, only believing that things just come when you order them — 

loyally not suspecting the kid-my-age from the house across the street, 

like myself, also from a cornered lot:  

	A son of a practitioner 

who moonlighted at professional wrestling events when they came through town 

took me along to a match featuring Pat Patterson lying on the ring floor with his signature blonde coif splayed out in sweat & a bloody face from a turnbuckle blow 

where the neighbor-medic jumped in the ring, a hero of spectators’ rumbling, to administer smelling salts that would bring the wrestler back from a foggy knockdown 

& who beautifully sprung back up in his boots & dramatically won the match & a belt 

	which recalled the practitioner’s son & I building a go-kart we never finished & the little tires that came between us

I was told to fight for — so I crossed the street & fought 

a first & last time

& the medic knocked on our front door & he & my father talked & that was it — 

we moved shortly later —

either with or without the go-kart tires — 

something only I now wonder — 

somewhere along SR 99, 

mostly anywhere midway between Chico & Fresno. 

oneiric composition thirty-three