Today NaPoWriMo suggests we write a poem based on a news article. When news broke that an incredible songwriter/performer died today of COVID-19, well, what other story could I write about? RIP John Prine.
Prime Prine
The time I saw you live
you were opening for Arlo Guthrie
but I just went to see you.
You covered them all, your glorious songs,
took us to Montgomery,
showed us the tracks on a young vet’s arm,
taught us a thing or two about long-distance love,
and I wished I could tell you
how I remembered a tiny kitchen
in a tiny apartment in Dorval,
you on the turntable reminding us
to be nice to old people,
me and a boy, a long, languorous kiss
where we forgot about the other people
in the room rolling joints,
drinking wine, middle of the day,
beer in the fridge, we’d never be old
like the couple in the song
and I wish I could tell you
how the friend who told me about you in ’75 or so
died a few years back and I know
if there’s any kind of heaven
she’ll have found you by now,
be showing you around,
and I wish I could tell you
how decades later my son walked down
a dusty Mexican road playing that same song
taking me back,
taking me back like you do.
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