Celtic Knot of White Denial
Nicholas Karavatos
Trains along the SoCal coast call back my decades of
Haggard-horns and Cash-horns. Now, I’m a free man
on a patio at the end of paychecks; a Sunday morning
track-crosser who’s gone off his rails; who is sweating
the seating arrangement of less focused
but clearer lines of vision on his coast.
Keep failing on high heat for the next forty years
of autopoiesis. Failure blandishes my fortune. I go
through life the last pinball wizard of minigolf.
No, I was not. I am not, no. But, yes, I was there.
We pooled allowances for dirt weed we snuck in
an Elton John concert our first year of junior high.
None of us knew how to roll a real joint from that bag hid in a bra
but I was broke with munchies so stood in real hunger by a snack
bar exit and spare-changed the middle-aged ladies at Dodger Stadium.
Years younger at Wrigley Field, I saw a hit ball lost in the outfield vineyard.
Before the game, I stood I felt I stood right next to
Ferguson Jenkins as he warmed his throwing arm.
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