Until the rock concert

Until the rock concert

we spend eighty dollars on a missing link and jump the fence before God starts tuning and the hail fills our open mouths. Without, our pant hems gnarl and snap at the ankle, twisting ‘till the cartilage in our joints vibrates like chewn rubber between teeth. We’ve taken our stops in thirty, forty minute increments where we lie sideways or upside down and chew rubber leaves and, astoundingly, starched and warmly risen memories of nights three, four years past. Then we hit at our knees and wake our ankles again, press on into the head of the street with our hands all neatly pressed to side, passing by outstretched arms with palms to God, harvesting the hail and allowing it descension carina, keeling into the South their hooked eyes follow suit. And, in this venue we can see better than we can hear with our ears stuffed in pinkish wax plugs, staged in our positioning with peeking window space seaming the rotational axis of two lights to paltry separation, yes, we’ve bummed around in the general admission court of chatoyancy with heels to hell and elbows locked, us all, all of us in the cat’s eye for some or another opener at the rock concert.

Art

Liz Clarke. The Balloon Man, c. 1942.

Oil with sand on paper mounted to canvas.

On view at The Barnes Collection, Philadelphia, PA.

https://collection.barnesfoundation.org/objects/5169/The-Balloon-Man/