The sound of the flapping of broken celluloid film

the theater lights come on

vanishing the dark.

The reverie and the dream escape

in a whoosh of reality.

I sit in my sit

as if I am naked.

subtly looking around

to see who is where

to see if anyone is looking at me.

I stare at the used gum

stuck to the back of the seat in front of me.

I study a pitiful mass of popcorn and spilt coke

moving like molten lava

making it’s way down the slope

capturing other fallen popcorn along the way.

From the corners of my eyes I see

the older guys

easing their arms back

from their girl’s shoulders

or from some other place.

The defects of a small town theater

exposed by the light.

I am exposed

I am 12.

I see the girl that I have a crush on.

she is with the 15 year old football player,

his arms wrapped in the leather sleeves

of a football letter jacket,

one draped confidently around her shoulder.

A letter jacket he earned at 15,.

a jacket that I will never wear.

I have a coke in my hand

popcorn between my legs

I am nothing,

less than the wad of gum

that I am staring at.

Ssome of the guys start to hoot and holler

whistling

for the movie to continue.

The lights go off

the projectors whirs

the dream resumes.

From his cell Marlon Brando points a little

derringer at Slim Pickens,

calls him a ‘tub of guts’ a ‘bucket of spit’

bluffs him with a little derringer with no bullets.

Slim Pickens, head down feet cowardly shuffling

opens the cell door.

Marlon Brando get’s out of jail.

in the street I am holding his horse.

Brando ‘the one-eyed Jack’ and I ride out of town at a hard gallop

to win the girl with the letterman’s jacket

around her shoulders.

‘you can tell it to the sky/the trees do not want to hear it

nobody wants to know/inside your deepest heart’

John Fowles - Poems