Backroads Anthem

 

 
Perhaps when I’ve lived long enough
that time and I have become good friends,
I will no longer curse at semi-trucks
going sloooow on the two-lane highway.
No, I will simply drive fourteen miles under the speed limit
and happily harmonize with the oversexed songs on pop radio
and notice how beautiful the swirls in the red rock cliffs.
I will not imagine fitting consequences
for drivers who pass in no-passing zones.
I will simply say thoughtful little prayers for them
to protect them on their way
as they blithely jeopardize the lives
of every other human on the road.  
 
And I’ll be so grateful for construction delays—
how they give me time to sit and reflect
about how happy I am to no longer be
the kind of woman who gets upset about traffic
and all the small-hearted dim wits
who don’t pull over when twelve cars are following them—
yes, it will be so nice to sit there beside the orange cones
with a smile on my face,
not ashamed at all that I used to be so bothered by it,
oh, remember that chapter?
I’ll be so amused I ever thought it was a problem
to creep an inch a minute for an hour and a half—
how lovely the slowness, the pace of patience,
my hands on the wheel, my foot humming above the brake.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com August 18, 2020

So Much Happiness

                                                                       for Michael

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to
  pick up,
something to hold in your  hands, like ticket stubs
  or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor that needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Word Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)

The Key Speaks

I couldn't believe
she tossed me
into the back of the car --
after all, a key
is an important thing.
But toss me she did.

You should have seen
her face when all
the car doors locked,
me sitting there
on the back seat.

That can't happen,
she said. But it did.
That can't happen,
she repeated,
as if her words
might change the world.

But everyone knows
words won't open
a locked door.
That can't happen!
She's still ranting,
walking circles
around the locked car.

What's done is done.
How many innocent choices
have pitiless consequences?

Tossing a key. Not
washing your hands.
Not saying I love you
when given the chance.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, wordwoman.com, April 18, 2020

Fatherhood

Human sperm are very small
Five microns, that’s about all
They are just a cell with a dangly tail
They’re just a fraction of the ovum
But still you’ve got to love em
And they’re produced in the testes of the male
Beneath their shiny domes
They contain your chromosomes
And the tail can kick just like a leg
O nothing could be fina
Than to swim up a vagina
And make a rendezvous with an egg.

The sperm has one ambition
And that is to gain admission
To the female reproductive canal
And once he gets in it
He swims a millimeter a minute
Along with forty million of his pals.

He’s a cell but he’s no boob
When he sees the Fallopian tube
He goes crazy and swims in a figure-8
About ten-thousand times
And those female enzymes
Keep egging him on to penetrate.

A few sperm advance,
And do their little dance
And only one gets through the egg membrane
And the merger of those two
That’s what lead to you
So be thankful that your folks did not abstain

That old man in the garage
Once let loose a great barrage
And though he now is ancient and infirm
And his breath is bad
Children he’s your dad
Because he contributed those sperm

You can get it from a bank
Or from Bill or John or Frank
But when it comes to fatherhood there is one guy to thank.
He was young he was dumb
And when things began to hum
He did not withdraw
He went on to be your pa
And that, my darlings, is where you all came from

garrisonkeillor.com accessed on February 17, 2022

Letter Home

I love you forever
my father’s letter tells her
for forty-nine pages,
from the troopship crossing the Atlantic
before they’d ever heard of Anzio.

He misses her, the letter says,
counting out days of boredom, seasickness,
and changing weather,
poker games played for matches
when cash and cigarettes ran out,
a Red Cross package—soap,
cards, a mystery book he traded away
for The Rubaiyyat a bunkmate didn’t want.
He stood night watch and thought
of her. Don’t forget the payment
for insurance, he says.

My mother waits at home with me,
waits for the letter he writes day by day
moving farther across the ravenous ocean.
She will get it in three months and
her fingers will smooth the Army stationery
to suede.

He will come home, stand
beside her in the photograph, leaning
on crutches, holding
me against the rough wool
of his jacket. He will sit
alone and listen to Aïda

and they will pick up their
interrupted lives. Years later,
she will show her grandchildren
a yellow envelope with
forty-nine wilted pages telling her

of shimmering sequins on the water,
the moonlight catching sudden phosphorescence,
the churned wake that stretched a silver trail.

Ellen Steinbaum, Container Gardening (Custom Words, 2008) 

Dorrie Off to Atlanta

 

Jen? Hi, it’s Dorie. I’m on the bus to LaGuardia. … Atlanta.

What? … Maybe. I’m not really sure. I mean his schedule is so

   whacked,

y’know? … But anyway. I was telling you about Marcie. Yeah.

   So

I said to her, I said, Marcie, this one seems different, y’know?

I said the last few guys you’ve dated—from what you’ve told

   me—

I mean frankly— … Yeah. I said, Marcie, they might be

like very charming, y’know, and with great jobs, but frankly—

what it comes down to is, Let’s hit the bed,

and in the morning, Thanks for the excellent coffee. Y’know?

But this guy— … What? It’s Jason. Yeah.

So I said Marcie, from what you’ve said, Jason sounds

   different—

and from what Bob said about him also. … Bob knows him

from some project last fall. So I said Marcie, you’ve had, what,

two coffees, two lunches, and a dinner, and he still hasn’t— …

No, Bob says he’s definitely straight. …

I think there was a divorce like six years ago or something. But

   my—

What? … That’s right, yeah, I did. At Nathan’s party after some

   show …

Yeah, “The Duchess of Malfi,” I forgot I told you. What? …

Only for five minutes–one cigarette, y’know? … Kind of low-

   Key,

like thoughtful. But my point is— … Yeah, exactly! So I said,

Marcie, this is a guy who understands, y’know,

that bed is like part of something, y’know?

Like it’s not the big objective for godsake. It’s like an aspect–

What? … Exactly—it’s an expression of something much more—

Yes!—it’s like, Can we be companions in life, y’know?

So I said, Marcie, for godsake—if you don’t give this guy

like a serious chance, somebody else—y’know? … Right,

I mean let’s face it— … Jen? I’m losing you here—am I breaking

   up?

Jen, I’ll call you from the airport—Okay bye.

Mark Halliday, The Gettysburg Review vol.7 no.1 Gettysburg College

Penny

She wasn’t a good cat. Wouldn’t let us pick her up

or cuddle on the bed. Sometimes she’d permit

petting, but only if she was in the mood, and on
her own terms. If she was perched on a chair, perhaps

you might approach. But now, at fifteen, she’s stopped
eating and drinking, sleeps all day. Instead

of wrestling the white Christmas Teddy, taking him down
to the bottom of the stairs, she’s huddled next to him

on the landing. Will even let me sit with her
and stroke her fur. I think she’ll slip from us

peacefully, but she’s starting to stagger, can’t
use the litter box, and her cries are terrible

to hear. So I take her to the vet–the place she hates
most in this world–because what else is there to do?

There’ll be no return trip. I hold her in my arms,
a fur-wrapped bag of bones. She’s gone beyond fear.

It’s not like I’m saying good-bye to a beloved friend–
she’s been peeing outside the box for months,

and “Aloof” is her middle name. But she’s purring
under my hand, as the vet slips the needle in, murmurs

appropriate clichés. I’m not sure what kind of loss this is–
how can you love what doesn’t love you back?–but for the rest

of the day, I wander through the empty rooms, looking
for a trace of orange, glimpse of a whisker. For she

was beautiful, and she knew it. No wonder the Egyptians
thought cats were gods. And now, we’re left, not bereft,

exactly, but stranded, washed up on some strange shore,
wandering, in the country of the merely ordinary.

Barbara Crooker, Some Glad Morning (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019)