Flying Cars 

They promised to be a normal thing by 1995,
according to my April 1989 issue of
Highlights Magazine

I visualized my future self:  a very mature
thirteen years old with Hulk Hogan’s
body and handlebar mustache, hovering
over the never ending sprawl with babes
in the back seat, cruising for burgers
up in the clouds and wearing the trendiest
electronic clothing imaginable behind neon
pink sunglasses blasting Sammy Hagar,
just plain cooler than Michael J. Fox and
the two Corey’s combined

the year 1995 came, proving the junior reporters
of Highlights Magazine unreliable when it comes
to predictions.  I had no muscles and just a bunch
of peach fuzz and patchy pubic hair.
automobiles still remain flightless jalopies stalled
on the freeway with no air conditioning, their drivers
cursing while they inch a little closer in a traffic jam
bound for the late blooming future 

Kevin Ridgeway is from Southern California, where lives and writes. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Chiron Review, Re)verb, LUMMOX, Bicycle Review, Bank-Heavy Press, Chaffey Review, Trailer Park Quarterly and The Mas Tequila Review, among others. He is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, including All the Rage (Electric Windmill Press, 2013), 66 Lines on Your Soul (co-authored with Catfish McDaris and Subhankar Das, Graffiti Kolkata, 2014), On the Burning Shore (Arroyo Seco Press, 2014) and Riding Off Into that Strange Technicolor Sunset (forthcoming, Weekly Weird Monthly Press, 2015).