A Supplication To the Child Down the Street, Who Rides an ATV Literally Just Up and Down This Residential Street for Hours, Every Damn Night

A poem for you, my sweet, loud, young neighbor...

When we see you 
you are only having fun
I know

although your contraption
is meant to traverse
over rocks
across dunes
flying through the ocean
that is the desert
and maybe you could even
fly up
into the sky
so I don't see how driving it on a paved road
could
        possibly 
be 
any fun

🌴

I wish your father knew that 
this 
is 
illegal
and, may I say,
obnoxious

for it is so loud
louder than a lawnmower
as loud as the garbage truck
for hours

🌴

but you are
not
     responsible
for this
and so I will add only
Make sure you wear your helmet.

Because I will never forget 
the tiny yellow dandelion
next to the road
and the way it hung down
from the black pavement sky
so silly 
before I crashed
headfirst 
into the sky

which was not the sky
but the road

with tire tracks on my back
on my butt
and my shirt in shreds.

I was your age.
And my back has never healed.

🌴

So make noise
      all the noise you want
only, please: Wear your helmet.
And go 
and sail
beyond
the stars.