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Travels With Jack |
Jack Benny is passing
from the solar system
to the outer stars,
the Shadow right behind him,
carried on radio waves
that once released to space
continue to drift forever.
The girl is with them,
her hands on her chin
her stomach on the floor.
She listens alone,
pictures hovering in her head.
She is with them now
as they were with her
in Wyoming, in Alberta, in Calgary
wherever a distracted father
intent on building an empire
of machine shops temporarily
planted her.
She laughs at Bob Hope,
she is surprised to hear
that Amos 'n Andy are white.
She listens to the President
talk about the Good War.
She travels with them past Pluto
heading for parts unknown
as her family has done so often.
She listens as her parents fight
as her father hits her mother again
always, always when
the girl is there to see it-
No, she's not there.
She travels at the speed of sound
with Jack and the Shadow
who knows what evil
lurks in the hearts of men-
she, too, knows
but keeps it secret
like her own identity
and the way she turns aside
a personal question with a joke
to cloud men's minds.
She lives in the same house
with the same husband, now,
for thirty years. But she's still
a girl, stomach on the floor,
vibrations of the radio
humming through her bones
lifting her, lifting her
past Jupiter and Saturn
out past Pluto where Jack Benny
has just asked Rochester
to bring the car around
for another long trip
into eternity.
copyright 2004
MC
Bruce |
