Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy
Ace Boggess
I’m driving, sunblind, on the familiar highway
between where you were & where you are.
My mp3 player picks a tune at random, &
you say, I love this song, although even in the dream
I know you’ve never heard it: a local band—
some friends of mine recorded it live, sounding
like the Rolling Stones at mid-career—
gritty, sleazy, catchy, clever. I tell you
about the group & its vocalist, my friend
who’s disappeared after bleak rants
online. You ignore me, singing along.
I join in, the two of us in flawed harmony,
voices riffing. Isn’t this the happiness we seek?
One of us loving what the other does?
Notes pull us closer like needle & thread
despite the road that will unbind us.
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.