Some of us parked our cars
\nwith headlights aimed at the foot of the
\nhill, giving us a bright target area
\nat the bottom.
\nWe headed up the hill
\ndragging our wooden toboggans:
\na variety of sizes,
\nmy four seater, a couple of deuces,
\nJeremy’s monster
\nthat seated eight.<\/p>\n
Above us the top, stars hung
\nlike a massive opera chandelier.
\nThe dark hill swooped down
\nlike more night sky
\nto the glowing patch at the bottom.<\/p>\n
Giggling riders sandwiched themselves onto
\ntheir wooden carpets
\nhugging the shoulders
\nor more intimately, chests
\nand thigh clenching the hips before them
\na little wiggle, and the toboggans
\nbegan their contour-hugging glide
\ngathering speed over the
\nsurprising night-black snow.<\/p>\n
The early silent ribbon-ride
\ndegenerated into
\na screaming roller-coaster
\nas the moguls turned the toboggan
\ninto a bottom-smacking
\ngnout that left tailbone
\nand teeth ready to confess
\nto any imaginable sin.<\/p>\n
The return haul up into the darkness
\nwas repeated by fewer toboggans
\nfewer riders until finally
\nthe patch of light disappeared
\nand silence descended
\nthe rutted snow
\nin peace.<\/p>\n
A toboggan is a device made for sliding down a snowy slope. It consists of perhaps ten to twelve thin tongue-and-grooved slats of wood fastened together into a long platform that is cuved up and back at the front end. Sometimes these have a thin cushion for passengers. Tail-bone injuries are common, as are concussions which occur when the toboggan collides with a tree. Riders sit as they would on a floor, straddling easch others’ hips, and hugging the person ahead. It is a pretty intimate sensation, and very popular on outdoor winter dates, in a rough-and-tumble way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of us parked our cars with headlights aimed at the foot of the hill, giving us a bright target area at the bottom. We headed up the hill dragging our wooden toboggans: a variety of sizes, my four seater, … Continue reading