JACKIE 031819 - DOG AT THE GATE

James Michael Taylor

Jackie Kelly sat next to me in 7th grade. She was great at diagramming sentences. I would catch up with her on the way to school and we would walk silently. She was buck-toothed and brash. I really liked her. I carved “JK” with a safety pin in the skin above my left wrist. Her older sister, Patty, got knocked up by a high school jock named Joe Henderson. We would see her late evenings in the park or she would slip into the darkness of the Tehachapi movie house. Joe had a ’50 Ford with Frenched head lights. He got killed one night, racing with his buddies out toward Monolith.

JACKIE

I remember that summer in the evening heat
When they brought the skating rink to Tehachapi
I asked Jackie when they said, “Doubles, please.”
It was an easy way for a boy and girl to meet

And then, when school started, at lunch time, we would meet
And Jackie would tell me the questions on the test in Biology
Somehow it all faded into History
And Jackie Kelly from Tehachapi is just a memory

(C) 2019 Royal T Music