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Gladioli


ISSUE:  Summer 1990
Who thought your life would come to this?
Singing along with The Greatest Hits to a few
gladioli in a furnished room, Elvis in the suburbs.
What you were sure was a knock at the door
was only the radiator having spasms as the heat
kicked on. And you feel more alone than before,
feel your love for the whole world coming on
stronger than before, so murder this little tune.
You throw your head back and thrust your hips,
raising a fist the way the King did, as if lifting
a spirit. It’s the way you felt riding a bicycle
home from the hell of school, doing wheelies, razorcuts
and crazy 8’s, until you felt dizzy and euphoric
as a true prophet. It isn’t that you could love

everyone on earth with your small mind, but you do.
Only a song you heard on the radio in 1959 will do.
Dancing around like the King in your small room.
Millions of years of human evolution and you are still
you: sad astronaut, approaching the moon on foot.
You love everyone on earth, and they love you.
You croon in your room. And the gladioli nod.
Doo wappa. Doo wappa. Doo wappa doo.

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