This afternoon I tripped
through black vinyl and battered covers of vanished years.

Lost my mind as I tasted Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna
and tangoed in the August night of Fleetwood Mac and Eric Clapton.

My 18-year-old toes dipped into a mirage of soft Algarve sand,
dancing the years away to Spencer Davis as he kept on running.

I leapt the Backtrack to my first moment of freedom
in London, seeing for miles the gilded splinters ahead.

I tapped my foot to Southside Johnny, cried in the wind with Hendrix,
dove the arc of the diver with Stevie Winwood.

I was a bat out of hell in the 80s, wild and adrift,
with Michael Jackson thrilling us in Soho clubs.

My sons and I bellowed Springstein’s Born in the USA
spreading our arms wide in the Arizona desert, dwarfed by giant cactii.

The Eagles lured us along the Mexican coastline to the Hotel California.
Sweet dreams are made of this.

Dexy and his Midnight Runners chorused Too Rye Ay in my ears
finding me in the Midnight of the Lost and Found.

Who was that girl spinning her moondance
as if this were heaven on earth?  Perhaps just a moment’s mistaken identity?

The rings of the discs circle now and shine in an infinity, like the planets,
song after cosmic song playing as time passes faster than the speed of light

till Bob Seger turned the page,  proving love more precious than gold,
Annie Lennox whispering “be myself”, and the Cars drove me out of the darkness to home.