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Summer Reverie: 1964

Davidson Garrett

twelve years old

alone in a rambling cowtown

deposited at the Fort Worth

Beaux-Arts style

railroad terminal

at sizzling dawn

after missing train connection

from traveling all night

en route from Colorado

to home in Shreveport

facing a twelve hour wait

for next scheduled departure

with wanderlust impulses

aroused inside myself

bravely exiting

the fading depot

to explore strange sidewalks

while carrying a small suitcase

& dripping perspiration

as nostrils smell putrid air—

the scent of cattle burning

out of nearby stockyards

surprisingly unafraid

lost in a deep dream state

realizing even in dreams

Texas is The Twilight Zone

but at last free of everyone

just me in a rundown downtown

gazing in semi-trance

plotting permanent escape

praying the evening train

will never come

tranquilly filled with pubescent peace

feeling like a man in a boy’s body




Davidson Garrett is a poet and actor living in New York City.  He is the author of two poetry collections, King Lear of the Taxi, published by Advent Purple Press, and Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit, published by Kelsay Books. His latest chapbook, Cabaletta: Poems of a New York City Taxi Driver, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022.

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