Janet Reed

Open Windows

“Butterflies are free to fly, fly away, high away, bye, bye.”  Elton John

On the nights I blew the smoke

of Virginia Slims at the moon,

I wished it would choke the men

who owned it, God and my father.

I wanted my unclean living

to clog the gutters with ash,

to counter conditions of contrition

in my Father’s house, scripture said

over spaghetti, my recitations

penance for my abominations

times when the wages of sin

and grease of my mother’s meatballs

had too much devil’s brimstone to digest.

I found my Jesus in fruit jars juiced red

with Strawberry Hill those nights I slipped

through open windows and swooned

under the orange haze of dappled lights

in empty lots to Elton on eight-tracks.

The hook of a riff, a lick of longing,

the taste of too-sweet booze,

and a long drag of you’ve come

a long way, baby, freeing me

of my Father’s house. I was sixteen,

carousing with strangers,

leaning into open car windows,

singing my hymn of praise:

someone saved my life tonight.

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