Concrete Lion

Stumbled up while on memory safari in the "picture drawer" in your Memphis apartment
Crinkled 8" x 10" glossy black & white Drama Club photo one corner dog-eared and bent
You - most handsome of a pair of concrete lions - guarding the pride on the steps at school
Statuesque feline harem all White Shoulders and Tussy fresh - embracing the morning's cool

Right here in my 21st Century hand - evidence beyond doubt of paradise here on earth
Chock full of good measure Seems like beauty oozes up from the Mississippi mud afterbirth
Each Southern Comfort wet-dream come-true kitten more alluring than the next in line
Implicit in each Judy Garland smile your life as her King Leo could be made near pure divine

Bobbie socks turned down to tease us for another two inches of peach fuzz porcelain glazed skin
Poodle skirts with saddle oxfords and cotton blouses shrouding waists oh so sugar wafer thin
That "genuine" silk scarf adorned by many so they told their Mommy - the latest fashion craze
But all the while an accessory strategic which veils a high hickey for a few short days

And you Dad, such catch by all considered - must have known for nearly ole time gospel truth
That half or more these bonnie belles should have given up their near about everything to you
Birthed your genetically perfect babies Enlarged her humble hips and spread your evening table
If she could just be your femme de la first choice - some time some way some how could be able

Arlene Johns or Betty Lou Sparks - always offering to help you study for you mid term tests
Here’s Dixie Leigh Harvey best - dressed junior jostling her coconut-contoured breasts
Caged all up in magnolia-bloom white and elastic - Such standing at attention-getters!
Playing peek-a-boo with me half century later Teasing through translucent argyle sweaters

Which dames here depicted? How many other poor sluts not captured and thus hereby shown
Mindful of you - your perfect hair on how many muggy cricket-chirp nights - as she would moan
While coaxing timid fingers into Tupelo honey Tempting her hopeful heart’s desire
or parked in your dad’s Rambler underneath sappy pines the air surround you both afire

Which ones settled down with what second-choice husbands once you seceded Serengeti?
Renounced the fertile delta and roamed toward preservation - some preacher school in Tennessee
Why beg to be excused from Eden’s early banquet table? Ambled off stalking more exotic lair
The scent thereby mislaid down which shadowed trail now strayed? Snatched in what secret snare?


Copyright © 2010 Jerry Buckley / Voice of One