It's Still Life

Dog Day Memories

I’m blinded by summer heat,
by its light, by my retreating
memories of auto-change 8-Track
Players, of red naugahyde seats,
of hips swaying to Mungo Jerry,
not that I bought his records,
nor did I touch the sky, but

I listened to other people’s music,
and other people’s ’70s opinions.
And by July, I was whining endlessly
about the heat. Chasing after shade.
Now I’m a relic — an antique radio
with spark-hot transistor tubes, so

just drop me on a garden hose
near a rotary sprinkler; my remedy
for those dog days of summer. Or
drop me in a summer reading club
with real books that are threaded
and bound with pages of romance, or

return me to my sketchy memories
of when my Grandpa laughed, when
his smile flashed like a gilded cage
because his teeth were for chewing,
and if teeth were crooked, those
teeth stayed crooked but mended.

I remember my first bite of pizza.
Nobody knew what it was back then.
We knew tomato soup and hand-crushed
soda crackers. We didn’t know a thing
about hate, or rage, or adrenaline,
and we sure didn’t shoot each other.

Sometimes summer is just too hot for
living. Makes people crazy. And I’m
of the belief that life is a string
of big events but mostly tiny moments.
So I wait through daylight for evening
to draw its last light; I’ll escape
the cranked up noise of the aircon, and

go outside. Listen to Mungo Jerry.
Watch the waves crest the beach.
Drive along the lane. Do as I please.

 
written for Poetic Bloomings: “Summer Phrases” There are some references to “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry.