An Old Refrain

The biggest screens of all stood at the drive-in

anchoring the northeast edge of town

to the Dumas highway, double features

for three bucks per car, a coke and popcorn

swimming in pools of butter for a dollar more,

then heroes and villains magnified

on the forty-foot screen, their tinny voices

piped in by metal box speakers that hung

suspended from half-down windows.

And the congregation had to wonder

when the preacher’s four-year old

began to belt out the latest musical,

a singing Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin

in some odd gold-miner ménage a trois,

this trio pushing aside the rightful trinity

while a little boy sings “who gives a damn”

to the titters of blue-haired ladies

and the chuckles of once-dour deacons.

And when he hit the chorus a second time,

“who gives a damn, who gives a damn

we’re on our way,” they knew they were right

about their suspicion that these pictures

robbed people of their souls,

and they longed for a simpler time

when people knew good clean fun

without sneaking peeks in the rear-view mirror

at the blue movies on screen two.


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First appeared in Faraway Nearby, edited by Lon Chaffin.