I don't miss those days

but some nights, when I am laid out flat

under the weather, and covered

by a thin sheet of sifted clouds

and the moonlight slips through

the señorita curtains

almost unnoticed:

I think back to the time when

I'd think back to the time

when the summer meant no less

than a solstice spent

running down the run-down block

and up again, from the top: the third act

of our Cowboy and Indian play

chock-full of tricks and treaties

until the Spaghetti Western sun

would send us all home

as redskins

in an epoch of reverie

the mistakes are always obvious

like the specs on the plan of the blue-sky blue-print

by every hippie architect

pitching us another

over-budget utopia

yes, there are parts of life

I too prefer to forget

but then again:

I think back to the time when

I'd think back to the time

when I was convinced

of the triumph of the demos

of the primacy of tomorrow

of the fallacy of fate

I don't miss those days

but some nights, when I am laid out flat

under the weather, and covered

I get tangled in a second-order sorrow

caught in the longing for a longing

in the loss of a loss