More Roses in the World
Black rain imprisoned Fort Clatsop
and the Corps of Discovery
during a winter on the Oregon Coast.
Two centuries later,
Rose and I paid a visit to the fort
on a December afternoon.
A squall hit like sheets of plywood falling from the sky.
Dark, twisting gremlins blew trumpets of rain.
Water ran down conifers like waterfalls.
The grounds were a lake.
Not a vehicle in the parking lot.
Gift shop and museum closed.
No rangers around.
Free admission.
We began our tour of the fort.
Just walked right in.
Rose lit an American Spirit.
How she kept smoking in the deluge
was something out of noir.
I narrated my version
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,
the real one,
not the account recorded for future publication,
worshiped by the academic priesthood
who believe what happened in the journals
is all that happened.
Omissions, the real story.
We inspected the kitchen,
imagining stringy elk,
endless smoked salmon.
On to the barracks,
so dark inside Rose had to
torch the way with her lighter.
What mold and masturbation,
fellatio and fornication
went on among the troops in here!
Next, we entered the melancholy
Captain Lewis’ quarters,
the dank, dreary place where he suffered
the greatest writer’s block
in American history.
Rose looked out the only window.
She lit another American Spirit,
flung the lighter,
dangled the cigarette in her lips,
slid down her Lycras and panties,
clenched the jambs,
exhaled smoke,
(always through the nose, a real pro),
and thrust her ass toward me.
She never said a word.
I wrenched her hips with my hands.
She sashayed.
Oh Sacajawea!
Oh Meriwether!
She blew a smoke ring into rain.
Top that Veronica Lake or Barbara Stanwyck.
We repaired to the Sipin’ In Tavern
on the Skipanon River.
I refused Rose
her usual can of Hamm’s.
We were celebrating.
Sacajawea must drink the best,
a well vodka cran.
The tavern listed over the river,
reeked of grease and popcorn,
dead animals mounted on the walls.
Rose wanted to know if I was going to write it up.
I started right in with a golf pencil on a napkin.
Rose always loved watching me write.
And correcting her atrocious grammar.
The gorgeous queen of double negatives!
A week later Fort Clatsop burned to the ground.
It made the national news.
Coals from the re-enactors’ forge
ignited a fire at midnight.
We laughed at that.
Sure, blame the coals.
I recount this true tale
not to drink a milkshake of nostalgia.
Rose was free verse.
We need more Roses in the world
to undermine
everything insidious
that digital life has inflicted upon us,
such as you can’t get laid in Fort Clatsop anymore.
If Roses don’t bloom,
we all wilt.