Of course, you are on my mind, Allen Ginsberg, with the full
moon in Sagittarius coming on your birthday.
        Across the roofs & through the trees, music splashes & spills
from the confines of the harness track around the corner with songs
about despair & second chances & whiskey, or rather, bourbon, because
we are in Kentucky.

        I imagine you, bearded & bespectacled, with your stars
& stripes top hat a bit early for the holidy, swaying, floating, not singing
along but chanting softly about sunflowers.
        You are solemn grace amidst the bustle; you are solace in a storm.

        You throw not so subtle side eye as the guy who looks
like Buddy Holly bumps into you.
        His girl, Mary Tyler Moore, grabs a thread & walks away
toward Garcia Lorca who shakes his head relentlessly after a swig of
watermelon pucker from his sterling silver flask.

        Walt Whitman, harnessed in studded black leather, has climbed
the fence, tonight not lonely, hand in hand with the ball-gagged bagboy
just finished another shift stocking avocados at Whole Foods.
        Wandering the fields with a midnight lace parasol & case like a vintage cigarette
girl, Emily Dickinson silently sells trinkets & t-shirts through the crowd.

        I saw you, Allen Ginsberg, asking questions of each. Do you want
to destroy my sutra? Where are you going after this? Do you have an extra moonstone?                 Selenite will do. Why such gloom?

        Eventually, the music softens & the Strawberry Moon emboldens.
        I sit on my front porch watching people, interlopers, who do not live
here, come to their cars to head home or off to a hotel for the night, only
to return, invade, again tomorrow.

        I wait for you, Allen Ginsberg. I ask aloud, Have you left the festival yet?
        The aging roses & usually spry impatiens do not answer; the caged
mandevilla & windchimes sway in the breeze.

        I see you down the street, coming with intention. You glisten
under streetlights, a beacon through the haze. Come sit a spell.
        We have plenty of wild strawberries in the front beds to match
the moon. What shall your intention be?