Heartbreak

Elvis died thirty years ago, yesterday.
In Tennessee, my lady friend from New Jersey succumbed to the Memphis heat
and died in a old canvas Army tent while camping near the Heartbreak Hotel.

She was found surrounded with stuffed animals and her portable phonograph plugged into the Bronco so she could play the 45’s she brought along in plastic milk crates. Hound Dog was still spinning on the tiny turntable when they found her.

I had visited with her for a while in her tent, played some tunes for her, fooled around a bit, but left to cool down in a downtown theater in Memphis. While I watched a bad mid-day matinée, I recalled the summer of '58, when I bleached my hair, put on my starched, black and white striped shirt, and posed for a photo with dad, by the side of the pool.

Elvis and I had some things in common.
We both liked peanut butter and bananas
and shooting pistols indoors.

We both liked the same type of
lean and long-haired ladies,
and we both played the guitar
just good enough – just cool enough
to get by
with the same type of ladies.