Soloing at the Senior High Prom
With the inelegance of an albatross
hurdling toward lift off,
the awkward boy–a 200 pound sack
of russet potatoes from shoulder
to hip–began to dance:
his tuxedo bowing out like mainsail,
tennis shoes like whitecaps
washing the shoreline of shell and rock,
his arms lifting, elegant in flight,
miles out, wingbeat after wingbeat.
No one has seen him since.
And yet, reunion after class reunion,
we talk about him–our
Amelia Earhart, our Saint-Exupéry.
• • •
Chet Corey is a longtime Minnesota poet. His poems have previously appeared In BoomerLitMag and appear in the most current issues of Coe Review, Hummingbird: a Magazine of the Short Poem, SharkReef, Shot Glass Journal, Studio One, and Whispering Shade. Born and raised in Minneapolis, he and his wife Kathy live alongside Bush Lake in Bloomington, Minnesota.