Email Poem

Your IP Address: 18.188.181.58

Your Email Address:

To Email Address:

Subject

Personal Note:

Poem Title:

Poem

on the wall a framed pistol

red velvet backing 

simple wooden frame

sixty years or more old

old as the vinyl record 

or  a real rootbeer float

maybe the year of the color tv

I imagine it as a day she

might have been hanging clothes

on an old clothesline in the back

and maybe a neighbor across 

the fence, some garden club 

lady named Eleanor yells

“Your old man has been shot,”


and I could see how she might have

dutifully been worried but silently 

felt relief as she slowly made her

way in the old ’49 Ford driven

by the preacher to the hospital

she finds him alive and learns

that his known mistress finally

had enough and shot him

she regrets to learn that his

“woman disease” hasn’t killed 

him yet and she watches him

heal up and dreads his return

many nights she thought maybe

the good lord would relieve her

of the beatings caused by that 

moonshine and night prowling

she sits on the porch one quiet

night as the crickets sing and the 

lightening bugs decorate the 

humid summer night

the radio playing “Some enchanted

evening” and she decides she’ll 

at least  go after a sentiment 

the mistress answers the door

with a cigarette decorated with

stains of her red lips and she

offers her hand in a dainty handshake

once their conversation has ended

she smiles and strolls down the walk

with this pistol in her apron pocket

stained with homemade apple pie filling

and fried chicken grease

she waits until his death to frame it

and now at 91, she smiles still

gazing upon it hanging on her wall

karma has no age and that day

it smiled on Mrs. Winnie

CAPTCHA Preview

Type the characters you see in the picture

Required