I’m Not a Juvenile Delinquent

“I’m Not a Juvenile Delinquent”
and I’m not a co-dependent person
have the same ring. In album art,
The Teenagers featuring Frankie Lymon,
white pullovers with the red T
stand out as the five singers stand
on a hill in Van Cortlandt Park.

Missing from the album “Teenage Love,”
a favorite. I hear
“She looked like a goddess…” My heart
races a little as Marilyn Miller, tall,
lithe, with long chestnut hair
strolls down the sidewalk under trees
towards the doors of our school.

The Teenagers, white sweaters
with red letters, have it all: money,
fame, love, on that hilltop
in Van Cortlandt surrounded by trees.
What happens, one by one they
leave. I’m 20, standing in dust
behind the O Club, a stone throw

from a guard shack and looking toward
the top floor of a high rise, in Danang,
in Stars and Stripes Frankie
Lyman died. Maybe in life
the ultra juvenile delinquent.
Then, a young adult, he throws his wife’s
puppy out a fifth floor window,

(according to the biopic). What to believe:
out of control, he asked for help and got
heroin. The sky is blue.
Sherman Garnes, far left, the tallest,
holds a budded grass blade
the color of wheat near the red T.
The Teenagers were ripped off.