#that is my name

fromReckless Chants #25, August 2019

dear xxx—

today I drove & wandered, my head filled with personal anniversaries. remembering the first time I hopped a train, from the twin cities to some one-horse Wisconsin town & back. crows in the dumpsters, abandoned factories, a bar with beer spilled sticky on the floor & dim red light spilling soft across the weathered faces of old men. remembering the first time xxxxxxx visited me, before we lived together. how I took him wandering my favorite train yard, how we kissed in the candlelight of my favorite bars. those are moments I keep in my pockets like hard candies, little drops of salt & rust to suck on, to savor when life is bland.

today I drove & found a park I’d never seen before. I walked the muddy, needled path into the woods, into the sunlight flickering dimly between the branches of the dark dark pines. I sat on a bench, poked the faded iridescence of a dead dragonfly with the toe of my boot, drank my iced coffee. I found a remnant of yellow chalk left by a child & drew my old hobo tag, the one I scribbled on boxcar walls back in my ramblin’ days—the saxophone with a dandelion sprouting from it, & the initials JJ. Jackie Jazz, the Dandelion Queen—that was one of my names.

some traveler kids came by, sat down near me. I gave them a couple cigarettes & they told me they were on a summertime hitchhike around the midwest. we talked trains & tattoos & I thought how glad it makes me to know there are still kids like we were, hitching & hopping across this country. then the boy pulled out his beautiful red guitar & played a Townes Van Zandt tune, one of those songs as wild & lonesome as the land. the red-winged blackbirds sang backup, swooping & squawking in the marsh grass. it was a moment I’ll carry with me, in my pocket next to that last letter from you.

that is my name.