Found Poem from “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" by Flock of Seagulls
(For Vernon, RIP 11.11.83)
on Fridays we cut through the afternoon
like a beam shot from your ray-gun scooter
brighter than the Kansas summer sky
dry, dusty gray as old paper
stuck to the drawer back
you'd twist to shout
I'd laugh, lean into you
swerving for the third time
buzzed on near-beers
headed
towards big evenings
of cheap pitchers, running
up stairs, over others to
the dance floor or next town
six miles up the two-lane
you never didn't make me laugh;
a quirky face
half-smiling,
my sides ached from
your rapid-fire wit
you, the misfit among boys
in tooled cowboy leather belts
and a one-syllable way of talking
humorless and hopeless,
they never didn't make me yawn;
you grew up there, but didn't belong
I grew up everywhere and didn't either
yours was the hand
I reached for - in the bar,
on the street, down the hall
If you'd reached for me
before you left, I'd have
tried to make you safe
the way I felt behind you,
racing through our galaxy
If I had a photograph of you
It's something to remind me
I wouldn't spend my life just wishing
