hitchhiking was common
in the summer of love
guess we thought we were guarded
from evil
by some mystical power above

my thumb was my plea
to generous humanity
to carry me to glorious heights
and other ethereal sights

many souls obliged me
both young and old
only wanting to be told
where I had been and where I wanted to go
for we were all part of life’s flow

so it went for many a dreamy mile
and after only a little while
I began to think nirvana could be achieved
as long as we all believed
in the love we called free

until one summer night
when my thumb was seen
by him
by him
in his old Olds
with his slick head of hair
why
did he
turn right on that desert road
that wasn’t the way to…
why did he…?

he stopped the car by a shallow ravine
where it could not possibly be seen
by other dreamers under the same dark skies
and pointed the blue stinking steel barrel
at my shaking face
“out, out!”
out, out brief candle I wondered?

I did not run, not from his gun
and when he pulled a shovel from his mysterious trunk
I can only remember that something sunk
my young heart? drum like pounding
and his vile voice sounding
like I would imagine an imp from hell

he leaned the shovel against the car door
and was about to ask my body for more
until I grabbed the grave digger with a frantic paw
and swung it wildly until I saw
him lying in the hard desert dirt
with his greasy head starting to squirt
the blood
the blood…
(later I wondered
who else shared this blood?)
but on that night
and in that dream
I only remember the blood
turning the sand from gray to black
and him lying on his back
and weak feeble gasps from his foul mouth
and me silencing his guttural pleas
with another blow
and another
and another
until
he was still

my arms ached when the sun began to rise
and I finally could open my eyes
to see him nowhere to be found
(except under the gritty ground)
and my deed was done

I awake
again and again
to wonder
where I really was the night before
and if there was really such a thing as settling a score
with the man who opened my childlike eyes
or for me, who closed his
forever