Senior year, we set our alarm to the country station,
assuming we’d snap to
kill the hillbilly twang,
but they played us Cash & Cline,
so we lazed on
our raft, & fingers rowed the dial
for jazz, thinking Thelonious would rouse us,
or that Mingus might
hit us in our souls, but they sent a breeze of Miles
who made us too cool to be seen trying
to leave the nest, & then, just when
motivation was again an option,
they slipped us Marvin,
& we eased into our imagined
throne, crowned
by his falsetto.
 
Maximilian Heinegg’s poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, December Magazine, Free State Review, and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. Additionally, he is a singer-songwriter and recording artist. He lives and teaches English in the public schools of Medford, MA.