If you want to make me cry That won’t be so hard to do. —Doc Pomus
I’ve squandered my youth on loneliness and cynicism. Couples slow-danced, close together. I leaned against the wall, stirred ice in my drink. Those June nights. That lovely girl smiling, whispering in her partner’s ear. A parked car and the shine of a radio dial. They never were for me. Someone told me Love was dreamed up on Madison Avenue by men in suits over bourbon and cigarettes. I believed him. Now the drive-ins are all deserted. Roller skates broken. Soda fountains shut down by the Board of Health. Lights out on the Ferris wheel. I can't find the moon. But something about you, that strand of curly hair against your cheek when you turned away from me, the paleness of your lips, or just those icy fingers I felt poke at my guts, made me think you could have taught me how to be young. I even thought I saw us for a moment on that barren fairground before we disappeared in a little motorboat through The Tunnel of Love. The neon sign flickering on and off on the dark water. Though it probably wasn't us at all. I'd just like to think it was. Her head on his shoulder; he so strangely calm. They must've been some other couple — only faintly real like the sound of church bells someplace far away — who maybe love each other but probably don't. The Centrifugal Eye
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