Sweet Caroline at the Satellite
A Collaborative Effort with Devon Henry
tell me, do you also dream of kissing? of punch-slamming
into the wall of a crowded bar by the youths in cuffed jeans,
sticky-desperate for a dance? hands like a high-speed
chase on the 405? long piano fingers in silky
cinnamon-vanilla hair? do you wake up sweating with
thoughts of a battering-ram tongue, peach soft lips climbing
towards heaven? of a shout in a mouth like the grand
canyon?
i bet you smell like wild jasmine,
i bet you taste like open road.
i sometimes play piano with my thoughts, dangle on the keys, a
strong scent of honey on my lips. i dream of kissing, of tunneling into
the depths of berry-blasted thighs, the sun kneeing its way into
focus as we collide into an abandoned abyss. who has the keys?
who’s driving this beat-up Chevy, full of rage and smoke-filled lies?
can I stay in your dreams for more than one night?
i know you need a change of pace,
i know i’m just your speed.
close your eyes now and follow the stars to the
angel-number highways; hold my hand and float with me to
the ghost town on a high hot wind, the old motel and the
boarded-up church with the pastel bathtub Mary still sitting
in her grotto; blow the sand from your hands at the
entrance to the pink jackrabbit cabin, the roof blasted open
to a leaking-heart sky; follow my finger to the horizon, to
the painted pastel mountains
and they will tell you a secret
they will sing it to your bones
the mystery of you — the touch, the feel,
you are everything a drifter yearns to seek,
the ghost town isn’t so grim, the boarded-up church
feels like home, the sand in my hands is a
castle upon your lips, and i long to go there. we can
build dreams in the moon-lit sky, hike our jeans up
at their cuffs, and dip our toes in forgotten waves.
come, i’ll marry your hand with mine, we’ll unite our souls.
and we can share this forever
and it will be our undoing.
©2020 Devon Henry and Tremaine L. Loadholt
Devon is one of my favorite writers, not just on Medium, but hands down, period. To be able to collaborate on a piece with her has given me indescribable joy and I hope this will be one of many pieces we work on together. Thank you for reading.
