—In the Style of Faulkner’s The Bear

He had dreamed about it for years:
the long hours of stages constructed
and lit, of loud crowds of women and
young girls throwing their voices forward
and lifting their arms skyward and
painting him as a king and listening
for hours in the still dark nights alone to
scratching needles on vinyl disks with the
eerie effect of spirits moving through the
night—a life of songs and Hollywood
films beginning long before he moved his
hips just so, in black and white, driving
his father’s truck, not fast but rather
dreamy and deliberate like his own
slow fall, leaving the building through
a cloud of thick bright lights.