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the Rose Bowl Drive-in glowed with innocent seduction
a block off Main Street
at some signal each Saturday night
one's car would fall from the street into its parking lot
and join the hot rods, jitneys, family cars and borrowed pick-ups
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nosed up to the round building like cats squatting before a bowl of
cream |
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the waitresses
(somehow it was a glamorous job) hooked trays to car
doors
bantered and preened
then left us to our cokes and fries
we eyed the competition:
Jims '52 Merc with fender skirts & headers
the maroon Chevy coupe
or maybe Miles was there in Deliverance
or we reached for a bare knee in
the dim anonymity below the window line |
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at the Rose Bowl -- amid a tangle of Friday night games,
Saturday night dates shakes fights
honks and lonely hot
dogs
we chased each other toward adulthood |
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in the rosy heat of its neon tubes i laid my hand between
Colleen's thighs
and the child i'd been was sent away
(did he cry and cling to life and hate the manhood he could not evade?
not likely!
he was an ancient child and i an infant man
and we both knew the score:
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those thighs reflected all the boyhoods ever lost) |
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our cafe jousting-field was littered with our youth with panting
sorties into sex,
with colors struck and colors blazoned
and innumerable silences
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