Poor Salinger

Sun-drenched afternoon (when I was babysitting the snot-nosed genius) raised high my feet on the sun porch’s rocking iron loveseat rusting,

to read my franny and zooey or nine stories, and drink my iced tea in a jelly jar glass placed carefully atop the red painted cement floor.

The breeze flowed coolly through open jalousies, rippling, little bubbles sliding haphazardly inside the glass.

Dog-eared paperback on my lap, with a weak binding and peeling glue

(can’t even read the title on the spine, bent so many times and ways)

tugged the phone cord’s sagging tendrils
– tight loops long unraveled –
sounding crackly
with the strain of distance from its base,because it’s too dark to read in the kitchen, and I love that shabby sun porch,

(though I don’t really care much what the snot-nosed genius is doing)

so I read and chatter about popes and quarters and life and sooner or later, collect my five dollars and go home

walking in my flashback.