Twenty Minutes

It's not 1948, Pepsi in paper cups, 
foot-long hot dogs, window trays at fast-
food drive ins, and outdoor movies, 
getting each other going in the back seat 
of a Dodge. It's the front seat of your Honda
after beers in the parking lot of a midtown 
bookstore where the local public access 
TV crew tries to prove poetry alive and well
in this part of the Deep South, miles from 
Flannery's wise blood, Faulkner's small town 
square,  the spirits, demons and dulcimers
of that pied piper, James Dickey, who might 
have approved of us, might have said Yes! 
Go for it!  and for twenty ecstatic minutes, 
we did.  Now, in the charged air of chance 
meetings, you ask, "Shall we ever?" and 
I fall back into twenty minutes of 
paradise--their immortal possibilities.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2007

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Austin Avatar
April 11, 2009 at 5:50 AM
Twenty minutes, yes, except it usually wouldn't last that long. Hey, Nola, this is so nostalgic and so intelligent, well written. I'm in awe. I recall taking a soused gal we'd met at a football game into 'The Pig," a drive in in Denver. She was so loud we were asked to leave. couldn't help it. Your poem brought back the memory so vividly. Love, daver
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