“Dear Phil”

Posted by John Dorsey on January 13, 2017 in Poetry, Pop Culture | Leave a comment

when i was a kid
my mother’s best friend
got arrested
for stalking phil collins

she would follow him
around the country
like the grateful dead

she talked about how they exchanged
mad passionate love letters
& how they were going to run away
to their own private island in florida

phil was a great lover
of sunshine and wrestling lyrics
like the alligators of summer

he just couldn’t let his female fans know
that his songs were all about her
they’d stop buying his records

we just nodded
when she told us
that we didn’t know
how the business worked

the last time she called
was right after hurricane andrew

by then she had left her husband
& was living in florida

phil would be joining her soon
she had written him just last week
he was a great lover, a real giver

& his fingers ran through her hair

like sunshine
beaming
through the clouds.

– John Dorsey