It was the time of my Auntie Bee summers
I was small then
She had a parakeet that landed on my head
and a bathtub too
with water so deep!
and legs and claws!
**** thing nearly chased me down the stairs!
She lived in slumbery Windsor Locks
where bugs hung-out in the haze
of teenage August
I played in the tall weeds
with a shoeless Italian boy
who ate tomatoes like apples
and cucumbers right off the vine!
He was ***** free and foreign!
We played— reckless, abandoned
behind the gas pump, under the tractor, in the barn
and through the endless fields
I didn’t know....
His name was Tony
I ate pizza with him—the first time
At Auntie Bee’s I had to go to bed at eight
but I could watch night flowers
bloom on wallpaper
She came in to say good night
slippered, shadowy, night dress slightly open
and I peeped her *******!
like Tony’s cucumbers!
I had never seen my mother’s wonders....
Night spread its wings from the old fan—
a bird of tireless exhaustion
whipped, whipped, whipped to death in its cage
tireless exhaustion
tic-tocking in time to a wind-up clock
stretched out on the whine
of the overland trucks
Route Five through the night of an open window
In the grape arbor below—
tremulous incessant
crickets crickets crickets
tremulous incessant—insides of a child
a summer child
not yet ready for the fall of answers
Auntie Bee had a daughter—Maureen
I followed her everywhere I could
I was small then--
do anything for a stick of Juicy Fruit
I followed Maureen through my dreams
of being sixteen
and woke to Peggy’s “Fever”
while she tied her sneakers
against the mattress by my head
I followed Maureen (in my mind)
tanned and bandanned
to work in the fields of shade tobacco
with all those Puerto Rican boys!
She knew where she was going!
I was small then
...do anything for a stick of gum
“Mauney! Mauney! Mauney!”
...through the goldenrod of roadside
through the smell of oil that damped the dust
I followed Maureen’s white shorts
and chestnut hair...to the corner store
I followed the way the boys smiled
the way the screen door slammed
on her bright behind
the way her lips taunted and took
the coke-bottle’s green
I followed Maureen
I swear, I tried for hours to get that right!
Must have been Peggy Lee’s “Fever”
Maureen ties her sneakers in my face
Flaunts her years above my head
She has that look—
“We kids don’t know nothin”
(Little turds” that we be)
…followin’ Maureen
through the goldenrod of roadside
tic-tockin’, beboppin’
“Fever— in the morning
Fever all through the night….”
Peggy Lee's Fever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hXyALR9vI
I was seven years old and did I ever get this!
Peggy Lee's stripped down performance is the epitome of ***.
Windsor Locks is in Connecticut.
