I woke up today the age of my childhood
friend’s dad when he was mid-divorce,
buying a speedboat and making crazy money
in the law, and thought how much I loved
sitting with Ricky in the bow as his dad
shot the waves of Lake Erie, the great glacial
meltwater of the Pleistocene whipped up
in our grinning faces, the inboard engines
screaming with Bon Scott on the speakers
muffled by the winds gusting down
from Ontario. Twelve years old, I knew
nothing, almost nothing, of the cost
of the lunches, after, at the marina, or
the trips to Cedar Point where the roller
coasters rose like tsunamis above Sandusky
that we’d spot still miles off, Ricky’s dad
bragging this time we’d dare them all.
There was another woman. Then another.
He grew his hair out just beyond the collar.
Got tan. Corrected me earnestly once
that Paul Simon didn’t write Bye Bye Love,
and what did I mean I’d never heard of The
Everly Brothers? I didn’t know his life
was riding a groove so well worn anyone
could pick out the rhythm, the three of us
in his new car, top down, singing Bye bye
sweet caress / Hello emptiness / I feel
like I could die / Bye bye my love goodbye.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 3.
David O’Connell is the author of Our Best Defense (Červená Barva Press) and the chapbook A Better Way to Fall (The Poet’s Press). His work has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Ploughshares, and Southern Poetry Review, among other journals. More of his work can be found at davidoconnellpoet.com.
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