if I made popcorn

This poem appeared at FULL OF CROW in October 2013. FULL OF CROW is no longer with us, so putting it up here. Hope you enjoy!

 

if I made popcorn

if I made popcorn would you stay and watch

this samurai movie I've been saving for a special

occasion, because time is small, in the same way

that a samurai has two swords, a big one and a small

one

            I was thinking of you last August. I was

also thinking of you at New Year's. Did you ever get

that bass solo? I didn't. But the ash that

covered my Honda that morning made me wonder

if you had something you wanted to say to that girl

we saw on the Demon Drop, with the penny on

her thigh. I remember vaguely you asking if

I thought driving without shoes was illegal, but

I can't remember which National Forest we camped

in on our way back east, because by then

the music had come back on, loud, a short in the

wiring perhaps, though to be honest, I think

we weren't, very, or not enough to make it

work, and I do get motion sickness badly, so

I wasn't able to concentrate when you said she

said that mad cow disease was already in the

United States, though after that all I remember is

your underwear hanging from my rear-view mirror and the

truckers' reactions when we passed them, and your

reaction when I told you that you were beautiful,

before I even knew you, in the computer lab

wearing that dorky baseball cap.