Watching Miami Vice Alone

on Christmas Morning in a Missouri Garage
you mostly watch for the clothes
& the excessive use of hair gel
you imagine girls on roller skates
snorting pure peruvian flake
off of don johnson’s sweet oily scalp
in the neverending sunshine
here it’s so dark outside
that you dream
that you can live
in 1985 forever
you almost don’t want to get up
to go to the bathroom
so you keep going back
to the opening credits
the music fills your heart
you think jan hammer was the god of war
for a simpler time
& are just grateful
that for a moment
miguel pinero got to leave
the lower east side
you read somewhere
that crockett & tubbs are waiting for godot
on a speedboat
in the florida swamp
it’s a sting
that snaps you back
to reality
where tomorrow you will get up
& things will not
be so easy.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023) and Dead Photographs, (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.