Paper Route

poetry

Photo by Harry M on Unsplash

Paper Route

The orange hatchback opens to the summer of ‘72.
The squeak of the brakes herald our arrival.  I’m 
throwing papers to the neighbors. Mama’s singing
to the radio.  It’s Elton John’s Your Song.
It would still be a few years before Farrah 
Fawcett would rule my dreams from my
bedroom wall, two other angels on guard.
I’m a preteen, lazy, moody, self-absorbed, 
on the verge of transforming from a short
crawling thing into a longer, harrier one.
How could you tell every stranger all about me 
so embarrassing, all that pride on display
and me under the passenger seat.
I’m sorry I couldn’t sing with you.
I’m sorry we never came to an understanding
that I could never be what you wanted me to.  
Michael J. Fox, really?
It was the year of Summer Breeze
one that lights up the bulbs of memory
nothing really just Seals and Croft and us
high on jasmine and mush, we drove our 
hatchback to the cul-de-sac where good 
ole Mr. Rogers was drinking vodka ‘n lime 
singing This’ll be the day we die, how we
laughed when he tripped over the sun. 
And my rolled-up paper almost took his ear off 
and all the dogs running through the sprinklers, 
the kids too sprinting to greet them, water
made holy through the ritual of innocence.
And I wish we’d got out and run with them 
but he was approaching fast with a scary
gardening tool, so I read him the headline 
Nixon Sacks Cox, what are you gonna do? 
Nixon’s Watergate dripped from every TV. 
I had no idea who Cox was or what I was 
supposed to be.  All the hatchbacks are gone 
now, the papers too, Nixon’s morphed into a 
devil who would be king and the neighbors 
are under the ground, either in Air B ‘n B caskets, 
Frozen Capsules To Be Continued or Nuclear Fall 
Out containers, or else trying to make it to the coast, 
which keeps sliding inch-by-inch into the ocean.  
But Elton’s song remains and so do we
and we don’t need any karaoke.
They’re singing oldies but goodies.
But this one’s always been with us.
I’m sorry I couldn’t sing it with you then.  
But can you hear me now over the squeaky 
brakes, joy dogs and watery disappointments? 
It’s me mama, singing your song.