to seek an Arcadian torrent while blinded by naivete

a wooden outing to the place that was just another finned guardrail
should not, in the double haze of white and aqua retrospection,
have necessarily required the mirrored transport of myriad bottles:

they were non-the-less exalted by my puny mind
into a stalled fetus of recaptured time.

I forgot to mention the pitted chrome and lagered breath,
that were, in nineteen fifty-nine, the latest model of foundry chic:

even flannel shirts of red and black with matching hats
and jokey flaps that jacked into the season of autumn jowls
should not have ended in a maple drip that saved a grieving queen
and ushered in, grimly, a maple shriek of quiet perpetual napping,

for thousands.

I almost forgot to tell you what I forgot to tell you:

water always seems to be a primary memory-
oh! the water:

gush, gush, gush; it's elemental.

of course our bottles were filled all day,

but when I saw the cascading torrent in its froth and sneering foam
rushing from a crippled scrub with its nascent grin of piny truth:

I thought a new god was being born from a mouth of silver rain.

I do not think that now.