Partial Visitation (At the Waterfront Music Festival)
by Peyton Blodgett
Styx is playing down the block,
old and inauthentic sounding.
We hear DeYoung singing wordless
meanings, a name I couldn’t’ve known,
“Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,”
that’s what he said.
A tired head bang lolling downward,
a screech for good measure,
as all great rock stars should;
he looks afraid, I think.
My childish fantasies
get the better of me,
looping me around the bend
of fingers pulling strings.
I kick my feet, dragging them along,
the split still resonating between us.
Drifting into the warm sunny pebbles
flying off the trampled gravel road,
I settle to watch the big naked monkeys
do their thing.
Hypnagogic jerk:
My father grips my arm so tightly
that I am now the red fire hydrant
sitting quietly across the street.
I am stuffed into its body, contorted, over-heating,
looking out with one hexagonal eye
as he quickly pulls his boy back against the flow of traffic;
the happy family is passing by.
The handprint is in his signature
of rage, of a man newly single.
His eyes are narrowed concentric circles,
black cupped by a soft hazel brown,
trying to squeeze every minute out of the day.
“Kilroy, Kilroy”
Kilroy, that’s what they said.
Isn’t killing forever?
Of course it is. Now hurry up.
Can you please let go;
It’s starting to hurt.
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