Say breakfast lover. Say soul saver.
Say nite-lite in shining armor,
sounds from my daughter’s room
from the record I bought at Target
at a musak kiosk.
Don’t be discouraged.
when I look at the cartoon cover
with you and the guitar telling truths
and summer stories starring Sammy the Spider,
I think of long drives in the back seat,
my CD player skipping like my heart
falling apart and together.
I’ll never take it back
because you were my someone, sometime.
You play a moonlit sonata.
If I were a bird, I could fly to Jupiter.
You were always the comforting one,
drinking deep and singing with a full throat of poesy
set to yodel—yell
screaming thoughts in otherwise silence.
Loneliness nothing—but misery loves company.
I guess what I’m saying is there could be worse things
than upbeat tunes for toddlers
my child has taken for her own in the back seat,
and I’d rather hear her sing than cry
so she knows life is more than endurance:
something that endears us to others.
Anna Dodson's poetry and prose have appeared in Occulum, Potomac Review, Per Contra, and elsewhere. She received a PhD in English from Rice University and currently works as a scientific writer in Houston, TX.
