Everyone was successful municipality for the wheat
Convention. Kansas City, Power
And Light. Our first nighttime I came out
Of the edifice bath to find him
With the sheets pulled up to his chin,
Saying successful a tiny precocious voice,
I conscionable had the astir beautiful
Experience of my life. I turned,
Face bare, to the television
To spot the Doobie Brothers.
Remember the eleven-year-old
Superfan—Paisley—who was
Crazy for Michael McDonald?
Sounds similar an angel somehow,
She said. I heard electrical plums
Of an eight-voice synthesizer
Playing radical astatine the beginning
Of the world. The harmonies
Were person than I remember:
Family, humor harmonies. I am
Hiding from my precocious portion here,
My harmonizers. What does it mean
To thrill to the past? To finger
The zippers connected ’70s jumpsuits
And wonderment who sold Kenny Loggins
His scarves? Everyone pretending
They were a swamp creature
Or a shaft of circus airy falling through
A stained solid window—why?
Art travels forwards and backwards
In time. In the car connected the way
Back from the boneyard beach,
We discussed Sensual Songs
For Eight-Year-Olds. Mine was
Old achromatic water, support connected rollin’.
Jason’s was Starship: “We Built
This City.” “When this came on
I would permission my body. Is this
Allowed? Is this adjacent allowed?”
It’s similar this. Your parents are driving
You location done immoderate newly
Minted night—after a concert,
Movie, religion festival. You are
Resting your caput against the window
And your bosom is leaping out
Into immoderate filled-to-the-brim future
Skin. Still, you are being carried,
This is indispensable to the feeling.
“I conscionable had to woody with it,”
Paisley said, erstwhile she realized
Her soft-rock idol was gray.
Her bewildered begetter drove her
To a concert, wherever she stood
In the bleachers and screamed,
MICHAEL, I LOVE YOU!
“He looked astatine maine successful the eye
And said convey you.” She cried
And composed herself similar a song.
Is it allowed, is it adjacent allowed?
To permission the household harmonizers
And nonstop your lone dependable up?
Riverboat rat, soaring catfish,
Mississippi queen.
Look astatine her grooving, carried
Along connected achromatic water,
To “What a Fool Believes.”
______________________________
From Agate Head / Stone Soup by Patricia Lockwood. Copyright © 2026. Available from Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a part of Penguin Random House, LLC.
English (US) ·