Issue Forty-One - Winter 2023

Farewell Tour

By John Delaney

Gradually, the rock bands of the Sixties
announce their final concert tours
as their members turn wistful and eighty.
They try to salvage that early glory
one more time for us, the loyal fans
who have followed their tabloid story
and will pay anything to see them perform
the music that we carry in our heads.

I’m reminded of the little girl
I saw holding her mommy’s hand
in the local grocery’s produce aisle.
She turned to look at me, then smiled and waved,
as they retreated into the store.
She’d already begun her farewell tour.

Copyright Delaney 2023

John Delaney moved out to Port Townsend, WA, after retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library. Since that transition, he has published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, and Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments. This poem is the result of adopting a ten-year-old cat.

All work by