Glory Days

Do you remember those days we spent,
Windows rolled down
Driving long hours
Blasting to Britney
In the blistering Georgian heat

To the giant, looming mountains
Of Tennessee
Passing through open prairies
While counting cows
And green highway signs

Then, vaporizing under the
Cool, ghostly fog
Of Smoky Mountain
And coming out
Into hot Houston, where

We played
A ping pong tournament where
You won gold,
Leaving me silver,

And afterwards you offered
Your burly shoulders
For my lonely teardrops
As we slurped noodle soup
In that rusty, old Vietnamese pho restaurant
Across from the new convention center where

There stood a homeless man
His cardboard printed,
In bold black sharpie,
“Down on luck,
Spare a buck?”
And we dropped exactly

A buck, and
Two generous dimes
The coins clunking
Onto the silver,
Corroding metal

And when we finally drove home,
Do you remember,
Teaching me how to play dòu dizhǔ
Red cards sprawled over the backseat
Giggles vibrating through the night?

By Albert Zhang

Biography:

Albert Zhang is Head Editor for The Westminster Schools Bi-Line, the school newspaper and oversees as Sports Section Editor as well. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Evolutions Magazine, The Westminster Schools’s annual creative writing magazine. Albert attended The Kenyon Review workshop, was a SCAD Silver Scholar, and has been published in Celebrating Art Magazine and exhibited at Atlanta’s High Museum, Capitol Building, and National Fair.