Written for a friend of mine on the west coast who took the passing of Olivia Newton-John harder than most…
Goodbye to Sandra Dee
Ray Van Horn, Jr.
she hefts the burden of virtue
on cardigan-covered shoulders
singing in lament, hardly in protest
against the stones thrown
from haughty wrists covered by hems of pink satin jackets
they jive their spite and their lowbrow pillow talk
from a tobacco-choked bedroom above
it’s a teenage despair we all feel, no matter our generation
Frankie Avalon can have high school all he wants
the squirrels, lazing in their nighttime tree hovels
are compelled to wake and divert
to the loft of her snowy, formless nightgown
and her snap case barrette, stamping her virginity
a flaxen seraph has broken the monotony
of the noisome, Ford and Elvis-bombed suburbia
they’re forced into co-existence with
even the crickets fall in love
all she wants is untainted love
marred only by the ambiguity
adulthood ‘round the corner brings
that, and the deliciousness of being furtive and naughty
with her Vitalis-slicked archangel-tramp
in his greaser’s sinning, grinning thunderbird pose
all hiding the latent moral fiber of Jimmy Stewart
their splendored summer affair purified
by the vast opportunity an ocean brings
crashed unto an unsatisfying ripple at an abandoned kiddie pool
which counsels the aches of her splintered heart
from dusty ponytail in a sex-starved drive-in
to redemption won on high heels at Prom
she morphs into an unexpected rock ‘n roll party queen
her gilded wings spread
then tangled, then at last, clipped
no turning back now
Graduation Day is coming
creamy, malt-colored clouds blanch,
beckoning the purge of her innocence
from the incinerated ashes of prudery
Sandy is reborn immortal
Roads Lesser Traveled 