Barrel Fires

Summer, 2012 / No. 28

The flames reflected in the faces we drove past:

they saw two good lookers on a holiday.

We rode up to Bay City, along the lakes, all over Chicago.

Why the hell not? We’re young.

Got a pass to see the World’s Fair,

girls wrapped up in ice cubes, midgets,

General Balbo & his twenty-four seaplanes

all the way from Rome. Fan dances. Sky ride.

We ate while sitting on a beach most all the time.

Motor courts, long & dreamless sleeps.

We didn’t listen to the news

or much outside.

We laughed like hell, I sang some,

Bonnie rhymed.

I grieve that my old ma & pa have never felt as free.