Don’t Carry Me Too Far Away

Briquette hot. Getting ready to ride the Rocket Jets at Disneyland. Someone ahead carried a small radio. Steve Miller singing. Above the spinning ride. Below we’d see Tomorrowland. Midday, didn’t we wish it could be night, lit up? If the future was below, I couldn’t know then that reading Anna Karenina when I was thirty would be an indiscretion. Finding out someone else wanted it to be otherwise from what it was. Now, dogs are loose on Union Ave. Collarless and full of milk. Not looking back. I drive alongside. See the white, plastic swan in someone’s red dirt yard. A hundred degree Disney day with tomorrow in view from another place. This is where I looked ahead from 1977. Here, people carry a case of beer like a baby. Here, someone fell for the wrong person over and over again. A gate is left unlatched. There were a thousand trains we could have jumped in front of. And we’re orbiting, still.