Lifesongs

It is an empty song

That has no memory it can create

When I hear it unexpectedly on the car radio.

Sometimes it only takes the first three

Notes of “Oh, Girl” to drain my heart

With the same fading as the day

Twenty-three years ago, when I saw

Gayle, my first crush, filling the arms

Of Stan Osaki

Or “Proud Mary” brims over with the aroma

Of Ghiradelli Square the night the basketball team

Won in double overtime away at SF State

And my school’s invasion

Of the “City” seemed complete

With our occupation of the chocolate factory.

“American Pie” puts me back in the seat

Of my ‘67 Chevy Impala,

Squeezed next to Mark and Dan

After another late night stuffing

At the Davis Taco Bell.

One song never gets played on today’s

“Oldies” radio.

One refrain of that song still asks

Me the same question about the woman

Who showed me how to play it on my guitar

One suspended D seventh

Chord ends the song.

Now the song has been forgotten

By everyone but me

Whose memories swirl

With the spinning of my record

And spill around the turntable.