|
Michael J. Andrews |
|
Sioux Falls Beyond a humid dashboard a storm is taunting Sioux Falls, while miles of corn moat the city: a bay of pure yellow. The tractors are plodding home, rain gear zipped and snapped; a flock of Piping Plovers rises and falls in a peculiar sine wave. Grey trepidation rustles "worry, slick, opaque" through the stalks. Beyond the sheets of rain, the curvature of the earth radiates light like a crescent moon stealing earth's side of the bed. This is a portrait of you, I think. "Look." you repeat, echoing the lurching shadow. So we open the doors to the Honda, tread the plains with our soles. "Smell the rain?" I say. "Yes." "I don't think we can avoid it." you say. "Don't worry, I'll drive." "No, I can do it." And I scrape a half circle in the gravel, tell you to tie your shoes. A tractor rolls by, slow enough to hit the city after the downpour, slow enough to feel a light summer rain and hit the city as the sun dries the wet - as I dry my brow with a bandana hoping you'll notice the halo is part of the scene, not behind it. I see it, but won't show you. I'm looking at you now, amazed you came, amazed you're still entranced… but oblivious I've been staring at you for the last ten minutes. Imitation I was told I'd like you, that you'd compliment my love of pastrami on rye. Bud you aren't shaking hands with anyone anymore or buying straps for your wristwatch - I don't even have a wristwatch - you've missed out on the wonders of mobile phones… In honor of your accident - where I ran au natural on the sand - I muted it, left it on the side of the Jacuzzi. So you see, I like you instead of Ginsburg - and Bernadette Peters instead of Streisand. Epic is not always as important as the Westside Y or the three piece suits on Madison Avenue. Though they don't shake my hand, Babs or any of them: I haven't hosted enough parties, much less a premiere! Eric is off to one with his boyfriend and Jesse's playing pool with Monty, our drug dealer, and everyone else has migrated to San Francisco - this happen to you? or was it Paris? So I pocket you, your collection designed by the Beats of the West... those who knew little of "lunch hour." God, for only a lucky peseta to get me back to Barcelona, where everyone is dressed for Fire Island! As you know, in Madrid, they wouldn't let me sit - fully clothed mind you - on the grass of their Botanical Gardens. You've treated me to lunch more than you know, were kicked off the greens with me, (forced into the Prado with El Greco and Goya. I love gorgeous things too) and I know it's time to sink my arched feet into the Hudson, since I'm far away from the Black Sea, to meet your old friends, now in their 80s, who, if I'm lucky, will see a hawk nosed tramp like yourself. |