Not a receptacle but still we can use it to hold a certain construction
of memories, the year the word roadie became official, the year we landed
a man on the moon and countdowns became famous.
After Woodstock, after the riots and assassinations of ’68, we were ready
for an excuse to cheer.
Some of us had passed from bubblegum to Jerusalem, some of us took
a more indirect road. What did I care? I’d just discovered sex and work, my
own money, the promise of a car.
The moon that rose over the horizon did not seem any less distant
with men scuffing its dust. Their voices reached us with flattened echoes.
What marvels might await as we moved forward into a world
where we could reach for anything and maintain our thrust.
I would start college in the fall. When I wasn’t working I sunbathed
on the dock. I was tan and lean. As if no longer tethered by gravity,
there was no distance I could not go.
Chris Dahl’s full-length collection Not Now but Soon, won Concrete Wolf Press’s 2024 Louis Award. Her chapbook, Mrs. Dahl in the Season of Cub Scouts, won Still Waters Press’s “Women’s Words” competition. Her poems have been nominated for BOTI and Pushcart Prizes. She shares her life with her husband and a tuxedo cat.
