FEVER DREAM
Many years ago
In the piedmont of a mountain
Airport socked in fog
City ruins in a surround
Member of a tribe*
At 18 didn't know
Hotel room for interrupted flights
Paid by the airline so instead
Wandered around and then slept
On a waiting room bench
Feeling flu invading muscles and head
When waking, all dark except
Emergency lights and full moon
Shining through the windows
Seeing tarmac where grounded airplanes
kept
Guitar music wafting across the
darkened room
A boy playing acoustical rock
Fifteen years to my eighteen
Member of the tribe* too
Like me, didn’t know what to do
Running away to the NYC Village
To play in a rock band
We spent the night
Writing songs
Me the poet lyricist
Burning creatively
He the musical genius
Really, quite good
Growing up in New Orleans
But he dreamed of finding Hendrix
At the Café Wha
(I’d stumble upon Jimi several months
later)
Because he’d sang and played
Cajun and Creole since six
But who wouldn’t want to be a rock
star?
I entrusted him with my words and
phone number
The next morning as airport lights
flickered on
And over black coffee and Georgia
pecans
We agreed to meet when I got back to
Philly
Shivering from flu I continued on to
New Orleans
He heading for New York
But back then no cell phones, no
answering machines
And if he called, I never knew
And one fine day
In the swampiness of Florida
Packing my car for a final road trip
Glanced down at YouTube on my phone
And could swear
At last year’s Jazz and Folk festival
Scraggly and gray
Pounding away
On an accordion
Voice scratchy but true
Singing words I wrote
Over half a century ago
Was Matteo
And I knew
He wasn’t a fever dream that night
But as real as me
And while the dancers applauded
He said: “Dedicated to the poet
Who wrote this song in a fog-bound,
Locked down, airport. If you hear
this,
Call me, Ms. C”
And I did…
*Tribe is my word for those of us on
the Autism Spectrum
© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: concertina, ukulele, kalimba
& tambourine
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