Ask Again Later

Ask Again Later, 1968

(For my little brother, JDR)

By Patricia Reinhardt Mondragon, Writer



When you were a kid I gave you an 8 ball

For Christmas

And since you, an Age of Reason skeptic

Were already a wiseacre

An atheist

An anti-catechist

An infant who would shout

Jesus Christ! when spilling your milk

And since you, a Televiewer, were

Questioner of the Vietnam War at the age of

3 or 4 as in

Mom!

Why is god letting that happen to those people?

As in your savvy assessments of my boyfriends

Presenters of what you knew to be

Hopeless Diamonds

As in your Ed Sullivan like stance where you

Rocking

With arms crossed would query

Other people:


Who…or shall I say,

What, are you?

You the Littlest Interlocutor

At last surprised me.


You so engrossed

So taken with

So carried away

By the little black lacquered ball

Which you turned over and over

In your chapped, red,

Fire starting

Frog

Catching hands

Hardly looking up for hours

Whispering your questions

Seeking the triangulated answers

“Ask Again Later”