As if Dancing to Basie (after Phil Burdett)

Warm beer,

rosary beads,

clutched for nothing

but comfort.

 

This knotted man 

is undone, nightly.

 

He two steps the pier

as if dancing to Basie.

Memories thrumming his head,

a persistent moth

that finally settles

to a baseball card

on a back bicycle wheel.

 

The road melt day of 1962,

riding with Stephen Chambers,

to the lighthouse and beyond.

 

Jesus Christ

he was something

wasn’t he?

 

Legs of muscle,

soft cinnamon kisses.

 

A rock solid knee trembler,

aching to be a man of his time.

 

They come,

they go, like 

denim and dimes.

 

Now the bruised mist

shrouds heavy.

Muffling the rollercoaster,

pulling a tarp over the day.

 

He falls asleep

on blown popcorn,

and dreams cheaply

of America.

 

Of Stephen escaping

to Mexico City.

 

 

@Dartford