The Dream that was Genie

 

A Love Song for Genie Good (1946-2012)

 

Genie, the first time I fell in love with you

Naw, it wasn’t the Saturday night date

 to see “Blue Hawaii”

For the first time, your love of the flick

made Elvis tolerable, not venerable, but getting closer

 

It wasn’t when we first made out

For if we did I don’t remember

 

No, ‘twas surreptitious

bypassing Denton Drive-In  

 across state lines, Atlantic bound

50 miles to Rehoboth Beach,

 

'twas serendipitous . . .

   Walking along the breathing shore

We found a rowboat half-drown in sand

to sit, to talk with our souls, our desires

hearts and hopes and dreams sailing

as the ocean caressed the sands

stars appeared in the East

All was well and promising upon earth

Yes, Genie you taught me love then

 

Not on the shore of matrimony

The social step to take

To lose our lives in babyhood

Perpetuating the race

 

In college you wrote you had a lover

My heart was not between my thighs

Not in your beautiful body and deep red hair

No, washed out to sea in that sandbound boat

filled full of hopes and dreams, and art and blood

Up in the starry sky carried out to See, See, See

Bless you Regina Good, 

for that you shall always be

Good, so Good, a Genie indeed for me    

                                       early winter 2020 ©j.m.frase-white

Photo taken at North Caroline High School, Ridgely, MD in June 1965