"Moonlight In Vermont" (7-Minute NaPoWriMo Poem for April 17)

Moonlight In Vermont




lit up the fire of rebellion,
you, in your woody wagon
that hadn't been washed since 1972.
"This car runs on alcohol, drugs and
guns" a fingerprint in the grime declared at the border.

Someone's published fate hung in the error
and the going on -- despite. In spite of the crime
you hunkered down downtown, hungry and angry
at the "Reich Likes Ike" button on the wall of your past,
the latenight telephone calls to the dead dad
who routinely tied you down to a red desk until you
got the grammar right, the argument
that came to blows between a son and his
father -- there in that paper stack room,
that chamber of the heart's interrogation -- the placement
of the period, in or out of the brackets
of a saying, telling, that multiple embrace of the notice.

I notice this particular season, same light
of a particular night in Vermont, passing through
with you and your "illegal alien" bride
going home to a place you'd never been,
never seen, among the placid cows I dread;
still inside a pen and the razor of the keys
and truth on that old Olympic, the constant pecking
order, the link and chain. The drive.



~ for M.C.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
written in 7 minutes for National Poetry Writing Month for April 17

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