Henry The Cave Man

Henry’s driving a ’51 Ford,
column-shift, trying to impress
Consuelo Sepulveda

or a girl like that,
sitting on the back steps of her house.
Henry was working

at not being a louse.
Henry failed and failed,
just like Jesus was nailed.

She had gorgeous legs at seventeen,
Henry only sixteen,
whipped by a coat hanger at home.

He stayed out on the streets,
maybe emulating the Beats,
a vowel between Ginsberg and Lowell.

Grinding gears like the organ monkey,
he pulls into the gravel driveway---
gravel as old as the Stone Age.