The summer of My Baby Does the Hanky-Panky
I baked to a sweet potato sheen watching 
adolescent heads dip like bobbers in sun-spangled waves, 
then pop to the surface to suck the jukebox filtered air, 
translucent torsos flailing in a wild dervish dance 
to the titillating lure of hanky and panky 
financed on quarters pilfered from mothers’ purses. 

My brother not so lucky a few summers earlier,
the summer of Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor 
on the Bedpost Overnight, when one dipped but didn’t bob—
fisherman’s dream lifeguard’s nightmare—
and he dove into the cool quarry depths to retrieve, 
then kiss a young man’s cool blue lips…

as cool and blue
as the summer of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, 
I believe, when he pulled the ambulance into the drive 
to grab a quick sandwich on the way to the mortuary
and asked if I wanted to see a dead guy— 
“Hey, Bob, do you want to see a dead guy?” 
was what he said—which of course I did,
of course I did, 
so he opened the vault-like Caddy door and 
there he was, an old blue man
who once played golf with President Eisenhower
the obit later boasted.

Fast forward 
to the summer after Jim, Jimmie and Janice died: 
highway tie-up on a mail run to Quang Tri,
crowd donning black silk pajamas and paddy hats
gathers around two young men and a young woman
stripped to the waist and pocked with small muddy-red holes
staring heavenward like sightless angels blinded 
by the sun those British boys promised was coming.

We looked	we listened	
then retreated from the dirge of snot and tears 
dripping onto a gurney of dirt 
to retrieve 

news from the World
we pretended then 
meant home and melodies 
that might save us all.

At home just a half-hour ago
an old man, gait wide and arthritic, 
scuttled precariously
across a Baghdad street.
The newscaster frowned, 
as if he knew something
the old man and I did not.

Here, 
feet planted solidly in park grass,
I watch a woman wearing a blue shirt
and camouflage hat loop
her bamboo pole toward the sky
then water. She strokes the pole
like a ritual of luck.
Her son, six or so, climbs the rail
and leans parallel to the pole
daring that bobber to move.

The boy, more sky
than water at this stage of life,
does not understand that
luck precludes desire 
here. He cocks his head as if
listening to fish whispers
below. Strange conversation:
like adults in the kitchen
just before sleep
or the dance of a bobber
on gray murky water
or the silent sun-drenched descent of dust 
in a bombed out building 
on the other side of a Baghdad street.

Driving home a squirrel darts beneath my car 
but in the mirror lives.