In the Shangri-La of San Francisco

they called it The Summer of Love,

 

tuning in and dropping out

to a soundtrack of spacey guitars.

 

Bookish, shy, and too young

for a droopy moustache and sideburns,

 

I was hothoused instead by Hayes

for the maths I was taking early,

 

but got a hint of something else

in Scott Mckenzie’s anthem.

 

Against her better judgment,

my mother allowed me to pick a shirt.

 

– A bright yellow shocker

with a floppy, extravagant collar,

 

it didn’t survive the first lesson

before they sent me home

 

to dream on at the back of the bus

of topless Haight-Ashbury girls,

 

whose painted bodies sway

to airborne waves of music.