Self-portrait

I have this pet theory that the beginning and ending of decades is actually subjective. For example, I believe the nineties began when Twin Peaks premiered and ended the first time somebody stockpiled food for Y2K. You may disagree, and really, this observation isn’t as wizardly as I’d like. It may just be one of those truisms--Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels or The Velvet Underground only sold 10,000 records, but everyone who bought one started a band--that doesn’t really get us anywhere.

Still, I like to imagine you sitting here, in this kitchen, discussing when time begins and ends through clouds of smoke. There are economy-sized bottles of wine on the table and the day is getting dark. “Well,” you begin, “the nineties actually started in 1988 when Mudhoney released Superfuzz Bigmuff,” flicking ash into an old coffee can. You bring a cigarette to your lips and inhale. The cherry glows and, just for a second, your eyes shine with fire and water. That’s all I’ve imagined so far.

Justin Lacour is not the same Justin Lacour who wrote the book How to Date a Millennial, but he has had poems appear in B O D Y, Parhelion, The New Orleans Review (Web Features), and other journals.  He lives in New Orleans and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry.