This next poem-- by the way, most of the things
I write about are things that go on.
There's enough madness around without imagining anything.
This is about my first romance.
I was 15 and the girl's name was well,
Regina Clink Hammer but she got to be
known as Kenny Clink Hammer.
And she rode a motorcycle and guys,
and people would not only ride on the same motorcycle,
they would not ride in the same pack with her.
I was 15 at the time and I didn't know.
I thought it was great.
What do I know?
I figured she knew what she was doing.
She didn't.
When I was 15, you were 19, getting
me drunk in a low-slung back of a 49 Olds
that never took us anywhere.
Rum and Coke, you'd sing until I OD'd
trying to fit my head out the half open window.
Do you remember old cars by any chance?
Like old cars, I don't know why but the windows only
rolled down in the back halfway.
True.
And I think in one way or another,
it is responsible for more misshapen
heads than anything else, despite what
the government will tell you.
OK, we're getting back now.
I had my head out the window.
Now we're going somewhere else.
Then into grass when spring came onto the back of your cycle,
for zig-zag midnight rides, huddled
against your cracked leather, fingers
numb from the morning frost.
Back to the city of the broken cement
steps like the mouth of an old man, down that grease
yellow hall to your constantly unlocked door.
Struggling with our clothes, stumbling over shadows.
My head spinning with the room, you whirling beneath me
like a deranged Ferris wheel.
The smell of gasoline upon your body.
I became addicted, I move against your warm back.
The spinning stops.
Together we cruise down dark country roads
slick from the rain.