Do You Remember Poem by Matthew Buchwald

do you remember
Leon Trotsky in Central Park
holding a catcher's mitt
for the mermaids from Weeki Wachee Springs
and barnstorming Queen Bess
in her Curtiss JN4 Jenny biplane
you were the Jersey Lil
dressed up as Tweety Bird
blasting like a calliope
I was pretender to the throne
of Pellucidar and Perelandra
(Norton the Invincible!)
preparing to abdicate
we were both leery of photographers, and
stripped off our clothes
and dove into the fountain
do you remember
the Molly Maguires, the Wild
Man of Borneo
who came to cover our backs
while a manatee turned a hundred cartwheels
and mole men swung all day long
from tree to tree on invisible vines
do you remember
after this how you threw everything
in the back of a car and took off
and you drove fifteen thousand miles
across three oceans till you ran out of gas
and then you called me up and said to come and get you
somewhere in another galaxy
and we took another trip
and you said you never wanted to go home
and we never did
do you remember?