A Cage To Hold My Dreams
Remembering Oklahoma
I fell in love watching Oklahoma,
not with Shirley Jones,
but with the girl beside me
faultless, long-legged Sylvia.
In the darkness of the back row,
my fingers roamed clumsily
over her tiny breasts
and burrowed, badger-like
between her thighs.
My brain felt it was going to
burst. It made strange whirring
noises like a catherine wheel.
We parted fifty years ago.
For trivial reasons.
She married someone else.
Our fairy-tale romance plunged
into a ravine. My fault.
I admitted it. I drove too fast.
Oklahoma was on television last
night. I watched it,
and asked myself, had it been love
all those years ago ?
Or some delightful fantasy, like the
corn in the movie, which grew
as high as an elephant's eye, and
seemed to be climbing clear
up to the sky.
