Five Poems by Sharon Waller Knutson

 

Rooming with Bev in Butte

 

Bev is Wanda the Woodpecker

with her red curly hair and spectacles

making me laugh when I want to cry

as I wing my way through freezing

temperatures, slick streets and deep

dangerous mines full of dynamite.

 

I am Belinda the Bumblebee

with golden hair and black roots

sipping nectar and making honey

as the new female reporter in town

while she nurses broken bones

and hearts in the hospital

across the road from the brownstone

 

where we sleep in twin beds,

take turns baking biscuits

and chicken on our gas stove

and ordering porkchop sandwiches,

cheeseburgers and peperoni pizza

on the weekends, when we drink

Singapore slings and Grasshoppers

and jitterbug with miners, businessmen

and boys home from universities.

 

When she marries a tall strapping

Irish Catholic who works in the mines,

and buys a three-bedroom house

in Butte, I wing my way to Washington

California, Mexico and Canada

followed by her letters of nurturing a growing

family as she nurses senior citizens.

On occasional visits, we laugh, dance

and dine on prime rib and cheesecake.

 

Now we are great grandmothers

married to our soulmates,

Bev still in Butte drilling dreams

in the Ponderosa Pines

and me in Phoenix winging it

through the desert sipping sweet

nectar and buzzing among the saguaros.

 

 

Broken Hearts Club

 

Tawny mane like a lion,

Leo told me he and his live-in

Lady Godiva used to ride

their pet elephant Ziggy

on Saturdays through

the streets of Escondido.

 

After she married a man

who looked just like him

and sent him photos

of carbon copy children

he sold Ziggy and spent

his weekends at We Care,

 

a support group for those

of us with broken hearts.

He taught me to laugh again

while we bowled strikes,

snuggled in a sleeping bag

on a Mexican beach, watched

Bergman movies in San Diego.

He wept with me, weaned

me off of sugar and valium.

 

But when my broken heart

was mended, he was back

at We Care consoling

a young widow. Commitment

Phobe, my friend says when

we see him at a foreign film

with his new rehabilitation

project.  She looks just like you.

 

 

The Scottish Country Rock Band

 

Summer Saturdays, the sound

of bagpipes, harmonica

and acoustical guitar drift

through the open window

of the small apartment

above the bookstore

in Idaho Falls, Idaho

and the elderly neighbours

grab their cane and walkers

and listen from their porches.

 

As the musicians march down

the stairs and up the sidewalk,

the bookstore customers

pay for their sacks of books

and race out the door. Families

at the garage sale on the corner

buying clothing and collectibles

join in on the clapping.

 

Cars stop and dogs bark

at the red haired ruddy faced

farm boy in plaid kilts and black

boots blowing the bagpipes,

the Vietnam Vet wearing

his Army fatigues

playing the harmonica

and my husband in jeans

and cowboy hat strumming

his acoustical guitar.

 

 

Social Media Unsavvy

 

I sign up for Facebook

to communicate with grandkids

when they don’t answer

phones, emails or texts

because they are too busy

posting photos, emojis,

slogans and expressing

 

emotions to virtual

friends who speak the same

language. I find myself

in a foreign country feeling

like a spy or a stalker

and wish we could go back

to the days when I exchanged

long letters with my grandmothers.

 

I got a chance to show off

my perfect penmanship,

on stationery with flowers

or animals, lick a stamp

and envelope seal

and mail it at the post office.

 

I would check our mail

box every day after school

for a perfumed penned letter

from Montana or Idaho

signed XXX 000 Grandma.

 

I didn’t even need to look

at the envelope to tell

which Grandma was writing,

The teacher wrote in cursive

and the high school dropout

who got married as a teen

printed in block letters.

.

Howdy Doody Stranger

 

My six-year-old great grandson

climbs in the car of a stranger

who takes him to school

and then he tells his teacher,

 

Stranger didn’t steal me. Proof

that all the warnings: Don’t

speak to or go with a stranger

drilled in his head as often

 

as the flashing lights

in the school crosswalk

are blocked out like a blast

from a boom box.

 

In the forties, when I am six

I accept rides with strangers

who pull to the side of the street

because refusing would be rude

 

and foolish since the walk

to school is long and cold

and windy and my family

applaud me for being smart

 

and social and safe on streets

where strangers never snatch

children with Buffalo Bob

and Howdy Doody in charge.

 

 

Sharon Waller Knutson was born in Montana and worked as a reporter on seven different newspapers in Idaho, Montana, Washington and California. She studied creative writing in Mexico and Canada. She lives in Arizona and has published poems in over fifty online journals as well as ten poetry collections and two forthcoming collections including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014,) What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t say (Kelsay 2021,) Survivors, Saints and Sinners and Kiddos & Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022) and The Vultures are Circling (Cyberwit 2023.)