100% Dacron dream
an American fantasy, like that red Corvette
when you got back from ‘Nam summer of ‘69
stationed in Killeen, Texas a few hours
from Pasadena and the girl you stole
out from under your own brother’s nose.
Okay, it was metallic blue but sounds better red,
and he didn’t want to be stuck in a rut (his words)
so you showed up with comfort and kisses,
opportunistic fellow that you were, the lucky sort
who did three tours and never got a graze.
Dacron might not stretch but stories do, the way
memory gives in to best and worst scenarios,
prettier people, better times, but all I can recall
is the running toilet and your snores in the hotel
off Spencer Highway not that far from home.
If I’d known how to get to the sky, I would have
but the song hadn’t been written yet, and you?
You went blind in Napa Valley, while I learned
to sail on the Chesapeake Bay, sunning myself
under a multicolored spinnaker, unfurled.
No comments:
Post a Comment