Sleet
Sleet began to Fall on Elvis' birthday,
January 8. Late afternoon.
The power went out and we missed "Blue Hawaii;"
We lit candles all around the room.
Ed and Melissa wandered in from the West
smelling like wind and kerosene.
The roads froze up and the dark got darker.
Trees rattled and rapped at the windows,
boney, cold, and lean.
Elvis sat quietly on the periphery of our dreams.
"All I really wanted was to act upon the screen.
I don't know how they made such a mess of me."


Sleet accumulated. Cars slid off roads and bridges.
January 9. A long time until the dawn,
The candles burned out, and just before the pipes froze
the power, like a miracle, came back on.
Ed and Melissa made love in the kid's room,
the kid who left long ago.
You must have thought of him as I held you close and warm.
You sniffled as you lay there like a big cat in my arms.
Elvis too was beautiful before he came to harm.
"I dug those early sessions when I played my own guitar;
but I was never sure about who my real friends were."


Then the sun, sprung from February's long legged afternoons.
"I smell Springtime in the breeze."
Elvis, blonde and tragic; young and full of ancient song
bloomed in such bright promise as damned the chemistry
of calendars. You swept a muddy soul
right out the back door; into the extended light toward Summer,
that smell from the ocean, fertility and candle soot.
"Sure, O sure, something worthwhile and true
had to come from all this, I just knew."
How sweet the breezes in the windows!
"I admit I was not bright, but I knew what to do."

- David Childers