Ode to the Bomb-Test Era
in high school
Sugar Boy says
why don’t we invent a product called RapidSex™
and when I say
how exactly would that work Sugar
he says it’d be an aerosol spray containing an aphrodisiac
a lubricant
progesterone as well as a spermicide
alcohol in an amount equal to that contained in two mixed drinks
a variety of aromas
such as mint piña colada and other popular car air freshener scents
and a coloring agent so your partner can see it
and not think you’re trying to put one over on them
definitely a coloring agent
but one that has pleasing colors
or different colors for different moods
a sunny yellow for first dates
rose or coral for the next few
mauve or lavender when things get serious
after that
well you wouldn’t need it after that
we’d have to come up with another product
Sugar Boy and I were coming of age at a time
when teens were still miniature adults
when the two college kids meet for lunch in J. D. Salinger’s story Franny
they drink martinis
eat escargots
and talk about European literature
doing their best to imitate adult sophistication
and on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand
the enthusiastic boppers who appeared on TV screens all over America
adhered to a strict dress code
no shorts or slacks or tight sweaters for the girls
and neckties with either a sweater or jacket for the fellows
nobody dressed that way in real life
said Dick Clark
but it made the show acceptable to adults
who were frightened by the teen-age world and their music
our teen years also saw the birth of rocket science
the racial integration of major league baseball
and the GI bill of rights
the interstate highway system sprang up
as did Holiday Inn motels and fast-food restaurants
the Corvette and Mad magazine
the Abby and Ann Landers advice columns
disposable diapers
the telephone answering machine
all this and more appeared as the face America changed forever
why not RapidSex™ then
though at this point I’m wondering if I should have called this poem
Ode to RapidSex™ and then I think probably not
yet if anyone recalls this poem at all
they’re likely to remember it as that RapidSex™ poem
the same way I once wrote a poem about cinnamon toast
that for one reason or the other I called The Afterlife
though when people ask for it at readings
they always ask if I’ll read that cinnamon toast poem
ours was the era of bomb testing too
of those annihilating flashes over Los Alamos
the Marshall Islands
a desert in Nevada
it was the era of the first rock
of Elvis Jerry Lee Otis Richard Chuck Fats Buddy
each as bright as the sun itself
and together the most powerful people on the planet
even if they’d only made one record
we were somebody because of them
we were everybody