Contemporary Trends
My old guy limp bounces the moon
through jagged snags of bare locust limbs
until its fat placidity in the face
of all that jostle floats free at last,
only to get sucked out of sight
altogether into a cloud. Some things
never change. Light and dark,
for instance. On/off, off/on until you tell
the kid to quit it for Crissake. Someone
has left a Danish chair by a driveway
with a FREE sign—sleek teak
and burnished stainless steel untarnished,
not tacky chrome, my flashlight’s
appraisal reveals. Just like the ones
my mother bought from Grigor
at the Contemporary Trends store
in 1959, providing pain in the haunches
and lower back almost immediately
for the next twelve years. Teaching us,
I suppose, a certain moral austerity.
Much like, more likely—after sixty years
for pete’s sake. Same old moon
danced the same jig through fretted
branches when I loped home
from roistering in my manic seedtime,
but the beer can’s defiant clatter
and truculent gutter trundle across
macadam as I kicked it along
darkened neighborhoods to watch
lights switch on is just a memory
of sound. And there’s the moon
back again to give all the shadows
of things variety and substance.
through jagged snags of bare locust limbs
until its fat placidity in the face
of all that jostle floats free at last,
only to get sucked out of sight
altogether into a cloud. Some things
never change. Light and dark,
for instance. On/off, off/on until you tell
the kid to quit it for Crissake. Someone
has left a Danish chair by a driveway
with a FREE sign—sleek teak
and burnished stainless steel untarnished,
not tacky chrome, my flashlight’s
appraisal reveals. Just like the ones
my mother bought from Grigor
at the Contemporary Trends store
in 1959, providing pain in the haunches
and lower back almost immediately
for the next twelve years. Teaching us,
I suppose, a certain moral austerity.
Much like, more likely—after sixty years
for pete’s sake. Same old moon
danced the same jig through fretted
branches when I loped home
from roistering in my manic seedtime,
but the beer can’s defiant clatter
and truculent gutter trundle across
macadam as I kicked it along
darkened neighborhoods to watch
lights switch on is just a memory
of sound. And there’s the moon
back again to give all the shadows
of things variety and substance.
