David Fewster ----- poem

REDISCOVERED MAUDLIN POEM DATED “FREMONT FAIR SUNDAY SUMMER SOLSTICE SALMON BAY PARK 2000” WRITTEN IN THE MARGINS OF A TORN-OUT STRANGER COVER AND FOUND IN A PAPERBACK EDITION OF LI PO THAT I STOLE FROM THE VASHON LIBRARY AROUND THE SAME TIME  

by David Fewster

Saw them get out of their Lexus

to pick up their 10 and 11 year-old daughters

fat, affluent, they were out of

a George Grosz painting,

hands on porcine hips, obviously giving the girls

a lecture on the American Way.

Disgusted, I bent back over my book,

a biography of the Marquis de Sade,

and surreptitiously took a slug

from my bottle of Hakusan saki,

fermented in the lovely Napa Valley,

and wouldn’t you like to try it

chilled?

I was interrupted by the sound

of elephants stampeding up a

mountain.

It was the couple,

each with a happy, childlike glint

in their eyes,

running toward the park restrooms.

“Geez, they must have to go

really bad,” I thought,

having been in that situation

15 minutes ago, but the bastards

in the Ballard Parks Dept.

had the damned thing locked,

even if it was Sunday at noon,

so I pissed in the bushes myself.

But no, they weren’t

there to piss—

their daughters soon

came up, and it was

obviously a game of

hide & seek, and the

look of joy had been from

the game and their love of it.

And I was abashed.

Where I had been

trying to find evil,

when the surface was scratched,

I only discovered

old hippies who

had not lost the

capacity for

having fun.

What the fuck’s

Wrong with me?