ManicDDaily

Election Day, November 1968

The wind blew hard
that blow-hard day.

My own school straw-polled
for Wallace–famed for
blocking schoolhouse doors in
Alabama; his
running mate–Bomb-
Them-Back-To-The-Stone-Age Curtis
LeMay –

Then there was Nixon (Tricky
Dick) whose secret plan to win
the war sounded just a tad
too secret.

So, at the requisite
sidewalk distance, I pleaded
(sweetly), smiled (winningly),
for the guy I hoped meant
peace (Humphrey), justice (maybe),
hoping, if I were just nice enough, voters
might be swayed last
minute.

But people proved harder
than trees, and the next noon,
my smile-taut face
wept in the narrow of locker
while, behind me,
greasers grinned; I remember
one boy particularly–
the low belt of his Dickies’ pants thrust ahead–

The war went on for seven
more years.

Seven more years.

I’m not saying I was so smart – in fact
I was so not-smart that I never thought
of how many of those same
slicked-hair-back boys
may have ended up on blade-whipped
ladders, copters leaving
Saigon.

So not-smart that I never
even thought about how much I’d
like to see them again, even just that
one boy, his forehead wan
below the Vitalis, his
surly-curled lips, slim jut
of hip, bare
chin–

how much I’d like to just sit
with him, both of us sagging
into firm but comfy chairs, side by side,
not opposite–it still might
be hard to look each other in the
eye–till we’d spent some while
in talk, swaying too
now and again to our
old songs–he
was shy of dancing, I
remember, for all
the swagger.

****************************

I am, in fact, so not-smart that although I knew that Saigon fell in 1975, I did the math wrong and said that the war went on for eight more years instead of seven. (Agh- I somehow subtracting 68 from 75 and got 8!  Yes, I am thinking of Bill Clinton and arithmetic in this moment.)  

At any rate, I’ve corrected now and extend my apologies to those reading the original version.

The above draft poem is posted for the dVerse Poets Pub Poetics prompt hosted by Mary Kling on the subject of Autumn.   Check out dVerse for wonderful poetry and, if you have extra time, check out my books!  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive, a very fun novel that is perfect for a pool or beachside escape.  Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents!