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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