Pole Dance by Mike Ferguson

Pole dancing
with the
Beach Boys,

the half-empty
Brian
is uncomfortable,
wants to speak
but is told it was just
a recording.

A lysergic echo
with fists,
he taps out off-beats:
tumblers vibrating
together,
knelling out
within ocean waves

where love once moved.

Mike Ferguson is an American resident in the UK from ’67, permanently since ’76 when Michigan then presaged the Trumpworld of today. Published widely in the poetry small presses as well as education texts, he is now retired from actual teaching.