At the Evening Cotillions, 1964

Ah, my radical friend. Later,
it was still the sixties,
the soi-disant and distant sixties.
The long-haired sixties,

where every pair of shoes was a protest.
I stole my parents’ half-wrecked Mercedes
to visit, sticking the long hours north
to Springfield. I spent the weekend alone,

watching strangers shoot up.