Radio straight hair,

Black as nineteen sixty-nine; an iron

Curtain over lemon drops.

It's all about freedom.

Grandfather's truck,

Red and old as my hands; backyard

Parallel at the willow tree.

It's all about breath

That I lost landing

Back first like a cosmonaut

Who needs no ocean,

Who learns of a brother

Years after the moon was lost

And the hatch sealed.

It's all about sugar,

Veronica and Jughead,

Elbows on on the carpet,

Too close to the screen.

It's all about staying low

In the front yard, watching

The float pass with this year's

Hostess princess. She straddles

Next year's missile and smiles

Us down with a radar wave.

It's all about freedom,

Breathless as an airlift,

Black as a bar cluttered

With empty lemon drop

Glasses, straight

As a backyard

Willow.