Projector

Projector navigates past and present in Michael Catherwood’s world of colorful scenarios of a one-armed Vietnam Vet running pool tables, dreaming alternate endings to John Wayne films, a vacation photo of a father scalping his son next to a teepee in the deserts of Arizona, and a man frozen in time.

Projector
The 59 Dodge is parked in the driveway
where its tail fins stab the air, mirrors
gray with gravel roads. Here our lives are,
jumpy and crooked against the stucco,
Dad’s practice swing a slow shadow
that folds across a burned-out lawn.
 
Eight months pregnant, Mom springs
from the Ford Fairlane wagon embarrassed.
Close up: her bright red lipstick disappears
into the house.
There’s the old garage
before it collapsed, its hinged doors
cockeyed and wide open . . .