We’d go out at night
To get ice cream
From Carvel
Singing “Hard Day’s Night”
Till our throats burned
And talking in nonsensical
Circles, always avoiding
The unanswerable

We’d love it when
Andrew Gold’s “Lonely Boy”
Came on the radio. You let me
Take the chorus as if you knew
I always regarded the song
As autobiography.

"Oh
Oh what a lonely boy!
Oh what a lonely boy!"

And then the sounds would die
As we pulled down your block
And we tried to regain that
Semblance of normality
While knowing there
Was nothing about us
One would call normal.

We fooled them, didn’t we?
But in that time, we
Never did anything to be ashamed of
Or that which required explanations
To any ghosts or ourselves in later years.

We’re still close
And I wonder if you wonder
How we became what we are
And if, like me, you sometimes tally
Up the psychic sums we paid to get
To the cool amiable distance
That allows us to carry on

Maybe there’s some deep down honesty
We could discuss someday
Over two brown bonnets
While the oldies station plays
Our choice of songs
And my trembling voice reaches once
Again for Andrew Gold
And you graciously let me take the lead.

06/18/2010

Author's Note: Brown bonnets: frozen soft vanilla ice cream with a thin chocolate covering...hence the "bonnet"

Posted on 06/18/2010
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