The first time I saw an American joint was 
     when some guy 
in the high school gym asked me to pass one along 
     to another guy on the other side of me

That guy seemed awfully anxious to get it 
     like he was going to light it up right there 
on the bleachers in the gym at

James Monroe High School in the Bronx 
1965

as the world was crawling into the 
Countercultural revolution

It was the first period 
     minding my own business 
watching the other students 
     in their gold and maroon gym clothes 
run back and forth across the gym floor 
     that has seen too many sneakers 
running back and forth over the years 

It was a big ass American joint 

I mean I’d never seen one or smoked 
     in my life

but I sure knew what an American joint 
     looked like 

The sticky-looking brown smudge 
     on the side of the joint 
which was fatter 
     than I ever imagined it would be

My eyes followed it from one black hand 
     through my brown hand 
to another black hand 
     to go somewhere 
where I imagined it would be lit 
     and smoked 
with smoke wafting up 
     toward Lucy in the Sky
with diamonds

Just say no

That’s what any good 
     (well, not that good) 
red-blooded Catholic ex-seminarian 
    would say
if he knew better 

In the James Monroe High School gym in 1965 
as the counterculture and craziness of the sixties 
was beginning to capture my imagination 

I was still a strait-laced uncool nerd 
     from the John Adam houses 
struggling with pimples 
     and identity 

I was a good, patriotic, flag-waving
     Star-Spangled Banner-singing American
where every day we were reminded
     the world was facing a crisis
between good and evil
     communists and all those people
who were working hard to bring down

The righteous 
     and the best 
and brightest 
     with drugs 
and beards 
     and long hair 
and surplus army jackets 
     and sandals

It was happening in my own soul 
     storing questions about life 
and authority 
     and why did I have to think like everyone else 

My own ambitions 
     about life 
beyond 156th and Westchester Avenue 

To places where you were free 
     to experiment with everything 
that you were told you couldn’t do 
     because that was the evil life 
versus the good life 

1966 
now seventeen 

graduated from high school 
     bound for college 
hanging out with college kids 

when I smoked my first American joint 
    in an apartment in the West Village 

Teaching me how to inhale 
bitter hard smoke into my lungs 

Suddenly explosively 
     my head rolls, spinning 
into the outer atmosphere 
     of the universe 
bypassing the earth 
     and the moon 

shooting me 
     circling Jupiter 
and Mars
     and is that Uranus coming up 

Wait
     maybe this is all in my head 
maybe I’m not circling 
     Jupiter and Mars 
and maybe just maybe 
     that’s not Uranus coming up on my left 

Wait
     someone 
is tugging at me 
     telling me 

I gots to go home 
     the party is over 
warning me to never smoke 

An American joint again 
     it’s obvious 
I can't handle being high 
     I’ve embarrassed myself 
in front of a lot of people 

hands pulling me up 
     while I’m still insisting 
I am passing Jupiter 
     and Mars 
and there’s Uranus 
     coming up on the left 

Maybe
     I’m looking at 
the buildings of lower Manhattan 
     from a yellow cab 
whose windows are open 
     on the way to the Bronx 

I’m hoping that I snap out 
     of my space travel atmospheric adventures 

pushing me back to earth 
     from Jupiter 
and Mars 
     and I can no longer see Uranus anymore 

only the Willis Avenue Bridge 
     and Third Avenue 
and then Westchester Avenue 
     and the twenty-one story high buildings 
of the John Adam Houses 

where my mother is screaming down at me 
     sitting by the window 
wondering if her oldest child 

Has fallen 
     under the spell of the devil 
or the communists 
     or both 
Never again

will I take a rocket ship 
     into outer space, 
past Jupiter
     and Mars, 
and especially as far as Uranus. 

I swear to my mother 
and my soul, 

even as I laugh 
      this will not be my last trip into outer space.