You look like Cat Stevens.
        —Who?

…fresh, unspoiled, tangle of black curls,
        eyes of a zealot,

…in the ’70s young men wore
        tight faded denim falling apart by degrees,

…anti-establishment, no logos. A guitar
        in one hand, hash pipe in the other.

I remember the boys in my Renaissance class looking
        like a touring production of Hairfree, naked and beautiful. That’s what you remind me of—
        a childhood I never had, your bicycle shorts,

skateboard career, maybe your Tour de France gold,
        and me, my gray roots showing, drunk on gin & tonics.

"Live fast, live hard." A method actor I once loved
        followed Jim Dean’s credo. "Live fast, die young."

You remind me of him, somehow, and the other young ones,
        the Cheshire cats, their hard teeth
                grinning in the dark.


by Myna Wallin
from: The Old Abandonment, ©2003