Sweet Betsy

 Sweet Betsy

Happened in a grocery store, 
I was fondling a can labeled 
Betsy’s Sweet Peas, reminded of 

    Oh do you remember 
    Sweet Betsy from Pike
    Who crossed the wide prairie 
    with her lover Ike

which made me realize 
Ike and Betsy were, like, 
making whoopee out of wedlock
all over the wide prairie 
before finally they marry 
at the end of the song, 
a song they taught us in 
grade school for Pete’s sake 
when a stranger with infant swaddled 
to her chest blocks the Safeway aisle 
and sings soprano:

    With two yoke of oxen, 
    a big yellow dog, 
    A tall Shanghai rooster 
    and one spotted hog.

“Excuse me?” I say. “Was I singing? Out loud?”
“Better,” she says, “than the crap they’re playing.” 
Harmony, you know, is intimacy. Instantly.
We, strangers pushing carts.
“My name’s Elizabeth” she says with a wink.
The baby wide-eyed, silent. 
A minute later from the next aisle 
I hear Elizabeth’s soprano: 

    One evening quite early 
    they camped on the Platte.
    'Twas near by the road 
    on a green shady flat.

But she falters. Over the shelves I offer:

    Where Betsy, sore-footed, 
    lay down to repose
    With wonder Ike gazed 
    on that Pike County rose.

Ah, love, and the day is plenty. 
The infant wails. 

…..

First published in Storyteller Poetry Review
Thank you editor Sharon Waller Knutson
Painting by James Lewicki from Life magazine, 1960.

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When I’m crooked

 

When I’m crooked

I go to Doctor Ellen,
lie on my back.
She places a fist 
under my spine, 
leans over me 
with ample breast 
pressing mine, 
tells me to take 
a deep breath— 

then bounces me 
chest to chest. 
Pistons groan, pulled 
from rusty crankcase.
Gears mesh, engage.
Fog of my mind clears
as old Doctor Ellen,
suddenly gorgeous
in a bolt of sunshine, says 
Bones control our brains.

It is therapy 
not love 
but not different. 

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual. Thank you editor Jim Lewis
Image from NY Public Library via unsplash

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I’d rather be a hound dog than a friend of Elvis

 

I’d rather be a hound dog than a friend of Elvis

My bow-legged mother had rickets as a child. 
Rickets, she told me, caused the bandy legs. 
A long time ago I read a hateful biography of Elvis 
which said his mother Gladys had rickets 
because she was an ignorant hillbilly. 
What an asshole thing to say.

Rickets can be caused by exclusive breastfeeding, 
by lack of sunshine. My mother loved sunlight.
My grandma had ample bosom
where I remember laying my head. 
Don’t know if Gladys breast-fed Elvis 
or if my mom breast-fed me. Mom died 
when I was young, I never thought to ask. 

I had a leg deformity called tibial torsion. 
Elvis had a rocking pelvis. 
Is breast milk destiny?
Mom could dance like a champ because, 
she said, the legs. Nobody laughed at her. 
In the beginning people laughed at Elvis, 
how he danced, how he sang. 

I was nine years old in 1956, a shirtless shortstop 
when a stray beagle wandered onto the sandlot 
and lay down between my bare feet 
panting up at me like an old friend. 
He was mine for a month.
One day he wandered off, made me cry. 
Then Elvis sang You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. 
Goddammit.  A beagle is something, ain’t nothing. 

Listen to your heart. Hear the echo 
of your mother’s heart, your grandmother, 
all the mothers straight from their bosoms 
to the bones of your legs. Believe them.
Believe the wisdom of dogs. Just don’t 
believe everybody, what they say, 
what they sing. Not even Elvis. 

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig
Thank you editors Hayley & Jessica

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Dear Oregon Trail

 

Dear Oregon Trail

Did you feel the grind 
when wagon wheels
with iron rims 
rolled slowly 
over sandstone
while oxen hooves 
chipped this path 
across Wyoming?

Do you feel this July day
a century gone by
the oncoming thunder
a wind rising as
across the ruts
one spry girl turns
cartwheel after cartwheel
toward our camper-van?
 
I am father
of that daughter.
So, dear trail, are you. 

…..

First published in Hobo Camp Review 
Thanks to James Duncan, editor
Photo by me of her

Hear me:

NEXT 1 MILE

 

NEXT 1 MILE

Wooden wagon wheels rolled 
through prairie grass and alkali dust,
over Sierra mountainside from Missouri 
bringing Jeannie’s great grandpa as a baby
to Jeannie’s little ranch 
in what is now Silicon Valley
which she bequeathed to her sister
who immediately sold for subdivision.
As Jeannie’s last wish she gave these funky 
wheels to me, to my home under redwoods.

Moon followed moon. 
Worm followed rot.
Wooden spokes detached, wooden felloes 
collapsed—saved for kindling. 
Rims remain—giant hoops of metal, 
heavy as history.

So today I drive my Subaru 
from the mountains to the Palo Alto clinic
and there’s a highway sign on Route 84
left over from road construction 
as you enter the redwood canyon:
          NEXT 1 MILE
That’s all.

I hitchhiked the American West,
summer 1968, hearing each next mile
like a gift among the yak-yak calls of magpies
a pop song played from every car and truck: 
“Soul Coaxing.” Raymond LeFevre. 
Lush violins. No words.
Then it vanished, as sounds do in the air,
never Number One so never replayed
by oldies radio but launched over light years
to bounce off galaxies and return by surprise
like a lost buffalo—right here, right now
on my drive to the clinic—tune of my memory, 
of alkali and prairie grass
broken by fences and strip malls as I enter
the parking garage for physical therapy.
For balance training. For my internal
wobbly wheel.

In the fireplace I burn remnants of spokes, 
of felloes for warmth launching white smoke 
while balancing on one foot like a 
blue heron in rehab as I hum a lost tune, 
as the creaky old wagon rolls slowly 
toward sunset along the space-warp trail. 
May we find balance. At journey’s end, 
soul rises like smoke. Each mile a gift. 
Look ahead. 

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen

*felloes: the wooden outer circle of a wheel held
within the iron rim, to which the spokes are fixed. 

Note: a year later the sign is still there, all alone among the redwoods and traffic. My balance is much improved. Physical therapists work miracles.

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After Eighteen Days on this Planet

 

After Eighteen Days on this Planet

At the breast 
baby likes to play
dive-for-the-nipple. 
Like an Olympian 
on the high platform 
baby rears back,
measures distance, 
then lunges for mother, 
for milk.

Today baby grabs his own hair, 
pulls. And screams.
The more he pulls, 
the more he screams
until mother untangles baby’s fingers
bringing peace.

Don’t we all wish sometimes
a big hand would swoop down
to unclutch us 
from our folly?
Then, oh! to rear back 
and lunge
at life’s big love.

…..

Photo by Luiza Braun

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Female

 

Female

Riding in my backpack
chattering gibberish 
she charms the gap-tooth man
who is in a happy mood 
so he repairs my chainsaw 
on the spot, no waiting,
asking only for
two six-packs of Bud
which we buy
from the bodega next door.

With greasy finger 
he touches her nose, 
leaves a smudge 
that makes me shiver—
his mark, a warning.
“Don’t tell Boss,” he says, 
winking at my daughter 
who giggles, who is as yet 
too innocent
of her power.

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review 
Thank you editor Roderick Bates

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Lions in the Grass

 

Lions in the Grass

Littlest grandson, age one, knows what lions do
but can’t pronounce dandelion as he toddles 
over grass pointing at yellow flowers 
saying “Grr! Grr!”
He calls me G’pa.

G’ma and me, we drive to town 
to buy a new electric clothes drier. 
The old one’s wheezing like me. 
We find one with a memory chip
so it can learn our drying habits, 
remember them as we grow older.

Bigger grandson, age four, 
with mischievous smile says “You want to hear 
something weird about my parents?”
G’ma and me, we both think: “Uh oh.”
And he reveals: “My mom is 41 years old 
and my dad is only 40, but he’s TALLER!”
Meanwhile I’m cutting a sandwich and ask, 
“You want it square or in a circle?”
He answers, age four mind you, 
“I want an irregular polyhedron.”
May we remember as we grow older. 

…..

First published in Storyteller Poetry Review
Thank you editor Sharon Waller Knutson

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It’s the Summer of Love and your period is late

 

It’s the Summer of Love and your period is late

We are college kids 
flowers in our hair 
bicycling through Oregon 
to Frisco or bust.

We cruise Tillamook 
as if a different life, 
tour the cheese factory, 
charmed by the town 
with cows along the road
calm in their cuds.

Maybe it’s a message from the bovine 
but your breasts, you say, 
are more tender now.
We are in love but not ready 
for the Big If.

Camping at Cape Lookout with 
hot showers, toweling wet hair, 
you return grinning because 
you are very not pregnant, you say.
End of an era, beginning of a period.

When finally we pedal into the Haight, 
summer’s end, it’s a strung-out scene 
selling no joy. Frisco’s a bust. You say 
We lost something in that shower drain.

To the airport, eastward, 
steam-heat classrooms for us. 
Rain, fresh green grass for Tillamook.

…..

First published in Monterey Poetry Review
Dr. Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, editor

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Father/Son Night is a casino,

 

Father/Son Night is a casino, 

questionable choice for a high school.
    (The goal is bonding.)
I play blackjack, amass a modest gain, 
bet it all at closing time—and lose.
    (It’s only chips.)
The boy meanwhile steps outside with 
a fretful-looking girl named Cecilia. 
Saves his chips.

Driving home the truck breaks down, 
a clunky grinding noise, so we walk 
a highway of headlights toward a pay phone
    (those old days).
Bats crisscross beneath streetlights 
harvesting bugs. A car slows, somebody 
shouts “Hey! Fuck you!” and is gone. 
“Friend of Cecilia,” the boy explains. “Ex.”

I call Rose who is home with sleeping 
children. Agonizing choice—
    (we live in mountains, isolated)
    (and looking back, we can’t believe 
    we made this choice)
but she leaves kids in their beds
    (ages 9, 13)
with a note if they should wake and drives 
to pick us up, an hour round trip.

Anxious, home, frosty breath of fir-tree air. 
Inside warmth, bundles sleeping safely.
Oh children of this fuck-you planet—
Consider the risk. 
Then love.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen.

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