A Night With The Eagles: Sprint Center, Kansas City, MO, March 19, 2018

My flashlight app flickers in the darkened dome

of this arena like high beams bending into curves

of a two-lane highway, and I feel the coming

of a tequila sunrise in this witching hour

of wrested time, can smell the Marlboro Red

the queen of diamonds ashes on my bellbottom

jeans. It’s 1976, my face out the window

of Suzie Garrett’s green Dart, the two of us —

heading west on Kearney Street,

taking it to the limit on a Saturday night

with a dollar’s worth of gas and a bottle of rum.

We loop lots from bowling alley to Pizza Inn,

one car in a long line of kids burning oil

and wasting time with nothing but time to waste.

Desperados, all of us, we found each other

in headlights and back seats, a toke over the line

of curfews, secure in our parents’ deep sleep

on white sheets after the news at ten. Our ticket

to ride one more time on this stage, we old fireflies

shine our lights on memories delicate as insect wings,

grateful to be free of the Mason jars holding our tomorrows.

It’s the encore, and Suzie, already gone, one more time

speeds through the Grant Street light, the Dart’s slanted six

coughing up its gears, and I half-sing, half-yell

out that open window: This night is gonna’ last forever.