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CAHUENGA, TOPANGA
By MICK TERRY
from Sherman Oaks,CA

7/8/2003
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I met her at a party that I crashed once with a friend.
She, too, was uninvited: a requirement to attend.
I can’t say that we hit it off so exactly well at first.
In making good impressions, it seems I did my worst.

I stammered and I stuttered like I’d never done before.
I stumbled over someone and I fell into the door,
just like some stupid bumpkin who’d arrived fresh off the farm.
But in a while she starts to see I’ve got a certain charm.


When I tell you she’s a hot one, well, you know we’re talking steam:
a blistering inferno that can only live in dreams.
That she might give a second chance or a third one was insane.
But there we were still talking as the party’s growing late.

We had so much so in common that we struck a two-note chord,
a harmony of feelings that would sing with every word.
But then her friends came over and insist it’s time to leave.
And since she drove them in her car, she said goodbye to me.


She told me that she’s moving and was now without a phone,
but said that I should give a week and to then use 411.
She shouted where she’s moving to as she pulled her car away.
But a passing motorcycle drowned out the city’s name.


Cahuenga, Topanga, Tujunga, Cucamonga:
Just where was it she said that she was moving to?
Canoga, Cordova, Covina or Corona:
The hottest thing going & I’ve no way of knowing
the town that is going to be her new home.


They’ve started to be sounding all too much the same.
I’m not sure what I heard,
but I know that the word
was a definite Mexican name.


Operators couldn’t help me, what with no specific town.
For three weeks, I’ve been trying. Now I’m starting to get down.
So here am I out driving on this freeway parking lot,
just trying to find the big green sign that points to where it’s hot.


Toluca, that’s it! That’s definitely it!
Or maybe it was Laguna? Or maybe El Segundo? Alta Loma or Alhambra?
Encino, Hermosa? Reseda or Redondo? …
La Crescenta, La Cañada? …


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