Love is Strange

By Ronald Koertge

A hundred of my closest friends and I are working
on Earth Day. Shopping carts, Big Gulp cups,
tons of plastic, more than one mattress.

I’ve got graffiti duty. Gloves, safety glasses,
TSP in a five gallon bucket.

All over the walls of the L.A. River:

MICKEY LOVES SYLVIA.

“Love is Strange” plays in my head,
the great Mickey & Sylvia hit from the 50s.
Come here, lover boy.

They’re gone now, but this new kid has stepped
up to tell the world

about spray can love, clean sheets love, blast
furnace love under a swollen moon.

Mickey out here at night. Scrawling a valentine
Sylvia can’t help but see on her way to school.

No matter how hard I scrub, the letters show
a little. They’ll be here after Sylvia graduates,
after Mickey goes in the Army or doesn’t.

After they forget each other and a couple
in a red canoe enjoy the refurbished river,

him with a paddle, her thinking of last night,
one hand trailing in the cool water.