i started singing...

there goes mama, with her pale blue cardigan, pacing on
the front porch next to miss joanie rae, filling us
in on the late breaking story:
did you hear about the young french boy who blew in at
the truman family reunion? he whisked lil' bessie all the
way over there to the lands where the real chocolate
comes from. and to think, she's only sweet twenty.

i sat, sipping my green tea, telling myself
i want beyond. i want to glide in the RV tracks
of jack kerouac and compare the stories of maine's
crimson lobster and the sunbleached pearls of CA.

here comes the caffeine rush.

i'm off of this wall, baby. i'm a flower, a rose
that wants to dance in the sky. swirling around,
strumming my guitar, i compose the sonata of nature.
(wisteria in the key of A#)

it will be a song of color, with the vibrant yellows
melting into the buff second movement. fleshcolored
and bare, it e x p o s e s the nuances of this defiant deer.

hello, my name is ashley and i am an all-american girl.
i eat my apple pie with vanilla ice cream seeping into
the gooey warm crevices of the sweet cinnamon apples.
i wear my old glory upon my shirt and i mourned the day
the music died all those years ago.

you know, mama always made the best apple pie. daddy
would rush home from work on thursdays because that's
when she perfumed the kitchen with the sweet apples, bought
that day at the stop-n-go.

i hunger for the pie.

when i take off to dance with the stars, i wonder,
will mama keep that light on for me? will she still
bake those apple pies even when daddy leaves the
working day and spends his time reliving his glory days
in his continually absent mind?

maybe i don't need to dance with the stars.
the moon is close enough.

this'll be the day that i fly...

04/27/2000

Posted on 07/04/2007
Copyright © 2024 Ashley Lane