A poem from September 26

I wrote it in a parking lot somewhere near Arcadia, Virginia. Just revised it a teeny bit, but it's got farther to go.

THE GUITAR SOLO IN “TALE IN HARD TIME”
Fairport Convention, What We Did on Our Holidays, 1969

It doesn’t matter
whether the lyrics lie, the rhythm section
grumbles like the old folks
upstairs, the keys sputter
like a hophead’s fingers.

You lie beneath. In time,
you leap out of bed, throw off
the stinking covers of night.
You are the crowing cock,
the snap of bacon,
the sharp sun that wakes
the breeze. You are
banners, mortars, Mardi Gras,
the guileless full-face span
of the baby just learned
to smile. You fall
like a vole-bound kite.

Then you go under again,
back to the cave of counterpane,
to find him gazing at open hands,
wondering when
it will come back.