Cannadone (Sunrise Alternative Remix)

I thought sometimes I had memories pure enough for poetry.
Clear Creek nights with singers jangling their guitars out over the waterflow, their ripples and strains making melody with nature's more bodily rhythm and I thought I could see the air temperature in the way we all took off our jackets and let our skin breathe in. Grass so dark green it was the inside of an aligator's belly. Grass with the dirt coming up between the balding blades. Grass we pulled absently on some destructive impulse.

I thought I was watching them listen, an audience to the audience
sitting in their crocheted ponchos with their thermos pouring something thicker than water into styrofoam cups. I thought I was remembering words, genius, moonlight, laundry, next week, shut up, hey now, shhhh.
thought I was making art of them, their gentle arm pats, their slow sways, the way one lanky woman laid back and pretended to make a dry angel by crushing the grass beneath her, her shirt catching and rolling up to show her belly.

But I was just hitting a bullseye
in a barrel full
of bullseyes, oily, cold, saucy with formaldehyde.

I can remember anything in fiction,
the long march to war of your brother, his green fatigues matching my own as I leaned on the porch, haloed by porchlight. He was going to drive to Fort Bragg. He was going to serve. I can remember thinking how many pies between here, now, and his return?

But you tell me I am young and I am neverwas and I can't have remembered.
Can't have done.

I only have a few walls, a few bus rides, a few Grand Canyons and every night a bed that lets me in between the sheets.