Poetry Thursday--"Lady"

This week's (completely and totally optional) idea over at Poetry Thursday was "Anyone up for singing along?" What follows here is a 500-word kind-of poem (I'm a fiction writer, not a poet, remember). You won't really know what song I've incorporated until halfway through or so, and (as yet to be determined) prizes go to the readers who manage to make it through the whole thing.


ten minutes till poetry
thursday and i’m trying

to get at some divine moment
that elucidates perfectly human

consciousness—in all its subtleties
and profound intricacies, its longings,

large and small. i’m thinking
of something metaphorical about

the 4-H tent during the county fair,
how judging for the flower competition

has just commenced on the hottest day
of the year. i’m thinking of some girl

with a watering can standing over a vase
full of wildflowers she’s arranged. the girl,

sweaty and worried, knows the judges
will deduct points for wet petals

but she doesn’t want them to droop
either, doesn’t want the whole arrangement

ruined because of this ridiculous heat,
and i’m wondering what she’ll do,

like i said, trying to figure out
the intricacies and subtleties of her

twelve-year-old mind
and heart and put those things

into some sort of action, but i can’t
get styx’s “lady” out of my head.

so there’s the girl with the watering can
and dennis deyoung’s vocals singing

“when i’m with you i’m smiling”
competing for space in my brain

and the singing’s winning out. i
could think about moonlight skates

at the roller rink, holding lynn
jenks’ sweaty hand in mine

as we complete lap after lap,
not wanting the song ever to end,

but instead i’m out of the 4-h barn,
away from the roller rink,

and sitting in a hot car outside the bank
while mom runs inside to cash this week’s

check. it’s 1984, and i’m eight, three
years younger than the song playing

in the cassette player. the car’s
ignition is on, but there’s no air coming out

of the vents because the car’s not
moving or the air condition is broken—

i can’t remember which—and i’m wishing
mom didn’t like styx so much,

that she hadn’t named me dennis
after the lead singer, and that she didn’t

sometimes get drunk and tell me
dennis deyoung was my true father,

not the guy who came to pick me up
every other weekend and who asked me

how mom was doing with this look
on his face like he was still in love

with her, despite it all.

and i’m wishing, too, sitting
in the car, too young for deodorant,

that i wasn’t sweating so much
and that we could just go through

the drive-up window like everybody
else because then the air

conditioner, if it wasn’t broken,
would be running full-steam,

prickling my chest with cool.
but mom, she was always afraid

of those canisters that sank out of the sky
through tubes. she thought that,

like photographs or poetry, or a perfectly
arranged vase of flowers, or a song,

the canisters could snatch
your soul, steal it away,

and never let you have it back.