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?
