riding in cars with boys

Lena, tell me you still remember those sun-streaked days..
Now old ladies; we wear paisley, sitting on the porch swing,
holding hands, sipping summer berry tea.
Now we're together, finally, though I never thought I'd be alive
and kicking pale-cotton caution to the wind;
past apartheid storms, past suicide-snow, revolutionary rainbows.

Darling, do you remember all those pretty years ago?
I swear, Lena, your maple-leaf eyes are greener than ever before.
And “You're crazy,” you object, shaking your head.
“I'm old, sweetie; can't you tell?
I'm no longer your fire-proof rose.”
But c'mon, I'm not that shallow..
You're still the one; Lena, my only safe-harbor, lighthouse glow
in a world of segregation, a shadow-land of ghouls.
Both 25 when we met, we were wild in the age of dissonance.
Reaganomics, same-sex secrets; yeah,
we were living the high life, cruising in the past-lane,
cursing with those sailors; survivors of
Pearl Harbor and getting tipsy all night.
Lena, we were rosy-cheeked, remember; our hair not yet gray..
And I truly believe, even today; 25 years later,
that mustang-hearts like ours never die young, sweetie.

It's funny, isn't it; how we spent most of our youth
riding in cars with small-town boys, Midwest survivors
of extinction, El Dorado explorers?
Oh Valentine's Day candy, ain't it strange;
how we never kissed in public?
No, we had a thing; saving it for the milky-white rain..
At least that was before the 80s, Lena; when it was
still like that, hidden between
the tabloids tossed out with gutter-star trash.
Paper cranes, fiery wings;
your daddy lit a cigarette one June evening.
He glanced from you to me,
made us promise to be careful.
“You girls are cute together,
funny like Lucy and Ethel; charming, even
a little bit brave, Thelma-and-Louise style.
But remember; not everyone is as
free-spirited, open-minded as I am.”
Then he murmured quietly, “Not even your mother.
Lena, she wouldn't like this one little bit; this
fascination you have with a white judge's daughter.”

Oh but you didn't care.
“It's not a phase,” you told your parents
when they both finally found out about us,
when they forbade you from seeing me.
Oh you didn't give two cents about that
kind of judgment; separation of class,
skin-color, gender and
I love that about you but maybe you should
have thought it through.
Instead you said, “Nope.
Momma, Papa; I'm not apologizing for my heart,
this organ you call 'twisted', beating red
wine for her in the center of my rib-cage.
I'm not apologizing for being true and
you know what else; this Yankee darling
and I are running away together.”

And after that, we made history out on the open road;
across the U.S in a beat-up, burned-out Camarro.
Smoke signs in the desert, gorgeous night; all teal
and gold-rimmed, sea-glass, sand-dollar, baby.
You were my guide as I navigated our escape
from that solitary life, red-state limits.
Yeah, darling, it was funny; all that time, dancing
on the San Francisco boardwalk, sipping
Florida mojitos and listening to jazz outside
Cafe de Monde with the long-haired surfers,
with the biracial musicians and part-time
pilots, explorers of the western skies..
Nobody ever suspected we were more than
holiday partners; horoscope girlfriends.
No, we were more like Sappho and Bilitis.

Too smart to stay home, get married young,
raise ungrateful children; you told me, Lena,
“Someday I want to settle down in the mountains
somewhere in my native Taos.
I want a cabin with a stack of firewood on the porch;
bright marigolds in the windows and
a gray, green-eyed tabby curled up on a Navajo rug
in front of the fireplace.
But for now; sunny-haired,
fair-skinned morning glory, let's just have fun.”

Oh and I hoped we'd make it till then,
till you were ready to be my bride in
an unexpected lily-sky dress,
with orange blossoms tangled
neatly in your Haitian braids.
“Oh girl, give us the past,”
my parents said when I told them
20 years ago, that you were
the only future I was interested in.
They said, “Times were so much
cleaner, decent, easier then.
But now, daughter, what gives you the right
to shame us like this; so publicly, choosing
a half-breed girl over a hundred
possibilities of blue-collar, private school
boys driving around our town,
family values stamped on their foreheads?”

“Oh Mom and Dad,” I shot back, fearlessly,
unashamed of your hand in mine.
“You two are so ignorant when it comes to love;
I can't even justify your prejudice with a response,
your bigotry; it's not in my bones,
coursing through my veins, even
though I carry your name, your Scottish blood.”
And it was because of you, Lena;
that I said all that, that I refused
to surrender, for the first time in my life.

Oh lovely, caramel-toned tiny dancer
in the streets of Memphis; the home
of the King, do you think that maybe
all those boys we partied with in high school
knew the truth; that all the while,
we were daydreaming about each other,
driving around from one malt shop;
thrift store to another?
Lena, do you think that deep down,
they knew all along; that
they could never hold us down?