red revving my
redlined engine, revealing
my dormant speedlove,

this one reminder of how I miss abandon
in this life strangling now
upon practicality,  of how I am

in my dreams still ahead of the curve,
high against the wall on the bank
of daytona’s turn 4, or alternately how

I am somehow also still ray charles
or his piano, sister rosetta tharpe
or her white gibson, krupa or his skins.

red revving the suv in the driveway
right up to the redline on the tach,
backing down before I burn something

out, before I bust something, before
I have to come screaming into
the too-narrow street on two wheels,

stereo up and subwoofer banging,
proclaiming that I am the last
suburban daddy of high, and

no matter how sub par the job I hold,
no matter how slow the commute tends
to be, no matter how swiftly I turn 

the volume down so as not to wake
the kids — NO, in fact,
I will not do that — kids need to hear

how daddy can still
boil like whitewater
when wildness beckons — that wildness

matters across generations
and danger matters in a small pocket
of his being at the least —

it matters, reinvention matters,
beings like me
who dream another being

for themselves still matter,
still are utterly alive
as they practice for someday

long after
it looks like
someday will never come.