With Apologies to Lesley Gore
There is a period of maybe five minutes this morning where the sun creeps over the
roof across the street and along the porch and I don’t notice it until it begins to coyly
come up my arm like a hand creeping over the seat divide in a movie theater and
Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when
(I will never write again,
Not like I did when
Everything was hard
and
a girl I pretended I
loved )
(name one poet who wrote
anything decent over 30)
in a movie theater and warms me up through my blanket and sleeves and I think, “
(who wasn’t doing drugs
or in a trance
or women,
who hardly count )
“In another five minutes, the porch roof will cut off the sun; this is poetry” and rush
back to my notebook to jot down a few lines before the moment leaves me (as if by
leaving, I weren’t abandoning the moment just as thoroughly), hoping to get the first
decent bits I’ve recorded in weeks
(I say “notebook”
and not “laptop” because
it’s more romantic. ditto
“weeks” not “years” and
the whole scene, even tho
I sat there finishing my
breakfast, too lazy
to rush inside )
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you’re near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine
(tho because the beats said tho
women because maybe mysogyny
can make up for not being gay
which might not be a prereq
for being a decent poet
but comes close.
I am channeling poets who are
not myself
in ways that are entirely
disingenuous
)
, so I jot down my lines with sunshine and coffee on my lips and I can’t get this ditty
out of my head that I don’t really know the words of, but I remember starts out with
“sunshine and lollipops and”
Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that’s wonderful is sure to come your way
(and hungover, which maybe accounts
for my “drugs,” and under 30
besides, so really not writing
because I don’t write, not
because I’m spent or
a woman )
and I feel a little bit sappy thinking of the song, writing a poem about sunshine, and
the moment is really gone, not because I left, but because I let myself write myself out
of the warmth of the sun against my skin
’Cause you’re in love, you’re in love,
And love is here to stay!
- Ben Kossak