Home
for Pops
Rolling through a sleeveless summer night,
resting on my back in the oil-soaked wooden bed
of my grandfather’s ’57 Chevy,
the moon spins on my tennis shoes,
the dusky smell of truck mixing
with groves of oranges, lemons, and grapefruit
that blanket our valley.
Wind teases me softly.
I pull back the hair from my eyes,
a jack-rabbit giving us a race—
he springs lightly alongside the truck
in a dry irrigation ditch
before banking
hard right and off into the groves.
This is 1977 because I say it is—
And look at me lying there.
Not yet a junky, hands blood free,
ears clear of constant feedback,
mind oblivious to seizures—
look at me, content to just lie back,
to breathe it all in. Look how happy I appear.
Not a trace of wild beatings, violet rings,
or abandonment—
just a boy and his grandfather
on the way home from the county landfill.
“Photograph”