Tyler Gillespie

Self-portrait as Cardinal after Watching A Star is Born (2018) with My Mother

My mother knows the cardinal’s song.   
Says hear him out in my garden.
Says look. We see different worlds,
orange guitar pick & two black eyes.
 
People caged cardinals for the audacity
of red crest. Conspicuous. Will never  
be mistaken as crow, as raven. Music,
his own – my father’s band, hard rock
 
in FL bars. He gave me my first drink.  
At 15, became his drinking buddy like
Jackson & his daddy were. & when I
fled the scene judge ordered outpatient
 
rehab – the working-class kind with grey
walls & no fancy name like Promises
or Chances because only rich people
get those. At 19, I sat with drunks.
 
Their country songs: dirt roads
& nights. Only stars to guide them.
I still drank   but not as much
& we all gotta start somewhere.   
 
You might think the bassist is safest –
the least assuming – but he’s the most
bitter, the one who doesn’t have the voice    
to be a star.  & I say if you’re gonna fuck
 
anyone in a band, choose the drummer  
with good tattoos. I used to get blackout
drunk & pretend to be a rock star
like my father was in my mind.
 
I stopped when I got sober
 because I’m no cardinal.
Can’t carry a tune. My mother
& I know how this movie will end.  
 
It’s a remake of a remake,
but when Lady Gaga says  
It’s not your fault we’re crying.
Both know he won’t survive.   
 
I pray let this ending be a beginning   
unlike the one before this
& the one before that one, too. 
A few years under my belt decided  
 
songbirds shouldn’t have all the fun.  
Sang Cher & Dolly & Shania at karaoke
because I’m a diva    & dramatic
but those songs helped me survive.  
 
Realized drunk people clap for anybody
who isn’t scared & I can bring down   
the motherfuckin’ house & my voice
is mine – it’s all I got in this world.  

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Tyler Gillespie is the author of Florida Man: Poems (Red Flag Poetry, 2018) and the forthcoming nonfiction collection Florida Men & Monsters: My Search for Pythons, Pioneers, and the Truth about Paradise (University Press of Florida).