JUMP

 by T. R. Poulson

   for Eddie Van Halen

When I think of punches

I think of unrealized 

dreams and a concert, way back

in 1984, those numbers in lights against

the dark. We could only record

it in our minds. Eddie riffed like a machine

except no machine

could have held its own, punch

for punch, with him. Those songs from records

made even better with so many fans, really

getting into it, hands in the air, hands against

hands, girlfriends held up on the backs

of shoulders. Mom bought us tickets way back

in the seats, safe from those machine-

like fans on the Minidome turf—against

my will. I thought I’d taken my punches

by then, was ripe for real

lessons in love. For the record,

I was a kid, too young even to record

a first kiss or palm on the small of my back.

“I’ll Wait,” I sang, and willed it to be real,

always impatient with the machine

that was time. I believed love had no punches,

just a “Pretty Woman” winning against

mean girls, but what mean girls? Us against

them? Those riffs, both recorded

and live, erased all life’s punches

rendered us all, one of us. I want to go back,

to find a time machine

that will take me away from the real

of today, to the rose-colored real

of then. I want to fight against

the way we inflict pain like a machine

I want to stop and record

that first palm on my back.

This time, I would throw the right punches.

Roll with the punches, get 

to what’s real. I got my back 

against the record machine.

T. R. Poulson, a University of Nevada Alum and proud Wolf Pack fan, lives in San Mateo, California.  A previous contributor to The New Verse News, her work has also appeared in other journals, including Booth, Rattle, The Meadow, The Raintown Review, J Journal, Verdad, and Trajectory.

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