MONOLOGUES: A RIGHT TO KNOW

 

 

MONOLOGUES: A RIGHT TO KNOW

1.

When are you coming back
from the front, son? Sometime
soon, before mom fades away?
Where is this Viet Nam? Iraq?
Afghanistan, Pakistan? Somalia?

2.

Will you take the midnight train,
Betty, and be home Christmas?
Me and the gang, we will throw
a party at the Metro, wait for you,
gulp suds for every train whistle.

3.

I guess he will not be around
for my umpteenth birthday, mom.
You invited him, did you not, he
and that woman in Denver? I
just have to wait by the window.

4.

Is grandpa going fishing with me?
Like last summer, he will drive in
on his old Studebaker, clanking
with a loose tailpipe over cobbles
on our street. Will he? Won’t he?

5.

I will not be away for a long time,

not too long. Before you know it,
some 10,000 sleeps from now, we
will be bowling again in St. Peter’s
Alley, cracking lightning and thunder.

6.

Come away then, come away, while
we can, let’s run through valleys,
swim the rivers with the catfish,
slalom down those snowbound hills.
Come away, Love, to some place away.
 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA