“A Passing Cloud,” oil on panel, by Marcus Stone, 1891.
The mirage dissolves looking out the same window you have since childhood, except you’re in your forties now and the daydream glaze in your eyes reflects for sale signs making you wish with what’s left of your soul you could buy the house your father was born in but you own only some books and a computer, having blown your money ordering muses from Big Poetry with a dream to cross a beauty mark and a bruise, then fell for the delivery driver, an ode-dasher with pop and frozen pizzaz declaring developments in the field of accidental imagination support any theory you can think of, but zero proves nothing, so your past must be razed to build condos.
Things you never thought would happen do. James Bond is defeated. Pets watch TV. Pot is legal. The world’s oldest woman has died again. A daily saeculum.
While you’re twinkling Mozart on kazoo, no more LMNOP. Let’s insist theme songs get straight to the point. Gilligan’s Island told a tale. I don’t want to hear a tale. You’re stranded, that’s that. The Brady Bunch had a story. I don’t care about a story. The Flintstones from Bedrock, who gives a damn.
But “meet George Jetson” is concise. “His boy Elroy,” of course, what else? “Daughter Judy” is efficiency at its finest. “Jane his wife” and the song is over. I no longer wonder what you are. I’ve come to set the ghost free. If silence was a word, I’d use it. And it would still be here when I finished.
John FitzGerald is a poet, editor, and attorney. His most recent books are Favorite Bedtime Stories and The Mind, both from Salmon Poetry. He’s been widely published in journals and anthologies.
