Living the Dream

The house reeled with classical music
and I waltzed through Alberta Woods,
wrote my way through the song of Loon.
Mother didn’t like my dancing around.
I could have made her bread dough fall.

My girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend,
who we were all secretly in love with,
was the President of the High School
and they were given money to buy
those 45 records with the big holes in the middle
that you had to put a little disk in
to be able to play, and soon, we ditched
our brown oxfords and hiked up
our stiff crinolines and danced in the bedroom
where it wouldn’t rattle mother’s baking.

Oh, didn’t we weep at Johnny Getting Angry,
and rocked to Whooooooaaaaaaaaaa, I’m The Great
Pretender and then Vinton came home to Calgary
in his long rain coat and dark glasses.  We dumped
her sister’s guy and took on Bobby Vee, Vinton,
for all our silly new haircuts were worth.  Went touring
to Spokane’s Coliseum and met the Platters and
The Temptations and we became temptresses
huddled under the covers listening to “Oh, John,
Oh, Martha” until our little hearts burst…well,
at least our lights were on.  If mother had known
we’d have spent the rest of our lives on the farm
winding the cream separator round and round
to dispense forgiveness for our fallen ways.

Then there was John and Ringo and we dyed
our hair multicolors with food coloring to match
what we saw on Dick Clark’s (“devil”)show,
my mother called it, and she abruptly sent us off
to girl’s club where we would earn to knit
and purl and chew gum at the same time
before we stopped off at the corner coffee shop
that had been turned into a juke box jive
and where we would steal salt shakers,
just because we could, until the owner
would tell us to get the hell out with our tight
neon stretch pants and damned noise.  If mother
had known, she have salted our tails.

But it was too late, we heard The Animals,
that would have made even mother
a whiter shade of pale.  And oh, my god,
Neil Young and we took another toke
went back to wearing long skirts,
called our mothers by their first names,
but never our Dads.  They would have banned
our Saturday night whose-turn-to-get-their-car-
so- we- can- go- to- Waterton Dance Hall gigs.
Roy Orbison cooled our jets and we became civil,
even to our mothers who stopped staring at us
like we were some foreign affair.

Of course, the wild side led us to Jim Morrison,
Who, I am quit sure, led to early marriage and early births. 
I couldn’t get my babies to go to sleep unless
I played a Reader’s Digest copy of the Classics.
I grew up with their music and I love “Waterfalls”
and Eminem’s closet song.  I even lost
my religion.  But then my daughter’s,
daughter came this Christmas singing
“Because of You,” and I laughed at the thought
that a mother could ever be blamed until
I stopped listening to the rebellion
and spent a moment’s attention to the words.
Mother, I am so grateful you made music
in our home that was classical.

Tags: Poems, Shhhhhh:A Creation Story //