By Gregory Lobas

Well, I was never going to get a letter sweater for it,
    was I? But, hey, I did have a song
written just for me.
    Did I say song? I meant Rock Anthem.
      Oh, wait. Did I say Rock Anthem? I meant

           >> ROCK OPERA <<

        No, I wasn’t a deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
            but I didn’t let that stop me.
          I could sure play a mean pinball.
              I could time the flippers,
            ignite the rocket ship.
 When the target lit up with concentric flashing circles,
            I smacked the bull’s-eye,
  popped the silver ball right into the dragon’s mouth.

        So naturally, I figured
  everything else would pretty much fall into place.
           Right?

But when I first heard you laugh
    the dingers dinged
in my amyg dadah-dala
  the ca-chunkers of my pituuuuuuitary
ca-chunked,
    and spinwheels spun
  in my cerebubblegum.

That whole medial forebrain bundle thingy lit up
   like a midway on the Fourth of July.

Aglow in the spectrum
    of anomalous propagations,
  uncontrollable situations,
        disjointed inspirations,
  you played me
        like a double-ball,
  bonus round of “Carnival Night.”

    So yes, I guess
  I do believe
in love at first sight.

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Gregory Lobas’s book, Left of Center (Broadkill River Press, 2022), won
the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. Other awards have come from the Poetry
Society of South Carolina, and the South Carolina Writers’ Association.
Recent work appears in Tar River Poetry, Cimarron Review, and Susurrus.
He lives in North Carolina and teaches at Isothermal Community College.
His current project is a chapbook of love poems for his wife Meg.