Toddler
Houdini
I’ve had it, my girlfriend,
a
single mother says
as
she tosses her toddler
in
my arms. He ran away.
An
angel in blonde curls
with
a devilish smile,
I
cuddle the child I wish
was
mine in my arms.
He’s not even two. Where could
he go?
I ask. The cops found him
in
his Pjs wandering the streets
near
the café where she waitresses.
If my ex finds out, I’ll lose him.
I
assure her he’s safe with me.
At
Wal-Mart he hollers
Daddy as his feet dangle
in
the shopping cart. A tall
blonde
man stares at me
as
if I am a kidnapper
until
I remind him of who I am.
After
his father leaves the store,
I
reach for a can on the top shelf
and
put it in the basket and the baby
has
disappeared. As I run up the aisle
searching
frantically, the loudspeaker
booms,
Will the mother please come
pick up her lost blond toddler. He
reaches
out
his arms to me and off we go.
As
he runs to his mother with an orange
popsicle
moustache, she asks me
if
he was any trouble. We had lots
of fun I say. My little parrot chirps: Fun.
Octogenarian Cowboy
Shouts
and bellows send
us
to the front window
where
three grey haired
cowboys
in hats hunch
over
horses as cattle
huddle
in our yard.
When
he sees movement
in
the window, the craggy
cowboy
in charge tips his hat
and
I recognize Manny,
and
his ranch hands. Two
blue
heelers get a drink
out
of our pond after
the
herd has its fill.
Manny
in the lead,
the
cowboys herd the cattle
three
miles down the dirt
road
to Queen Valley
where
they vaccinate
and
brand the calves
and
herd the babies
and
mamas back to the desert.
Cars
are stopped
on
the paved
road
from Highway 60
to
Queen Valley as a bull
and
cows with calves weave
in
and out of traffic
and
behind them are three
craggy
cowboys herding
the
cattle off the highway.
On
his 90th birthday, a leather
faced
bowlegged Manny
ties
his horse to an Ironwood
tree
and tells us he’s sold the ranch.
We
still see the old bull
and
a few cows and calves
now
and then but we miss
the
cowboys rounding up
the
cattle on Saturday mornings.
Ballad of Big Bad Bob
The
General Motors
retired
engineer
waddles
like a whale
through
the Wal-Mart
parking
lot to buy raw beef
for
the tawny mountain lion
that
lives in his driveway
under
his copper coloured
Lincoln
Continental convertible,
smooth
and sophisticated
as
the Scotch he sips
over
ice with his fifth
wife,
a skinny blonde
half
his age, who drinks
Champagne
like water,
and
his guests on his patio
when
hunters hike the hill
on
the side of the golf course
and
bullets fly like quail.
Hold your fire, he hollers
but
when the patio is peppered
with
swear words and more bullets
he
stomps in the house, grabs his shotgun
and
shoots at the hunters who scatter
like
leaves in the wind. The cougar
is
still crouched under his car, hunters
still
shooting, and his wife drinking
champagne
on the deck with guests
when
he slips in the swimming pool
while
sipping scotch and strokes out
on
his eighty-ninth birthday.
Cousins
Frankie’s
boss at the bakery
tells
him his sister came
to
take him to lunch.
I don’t have a sister, he says.
She looks just like you.
Blonde. Dimples
.
He
knows right away
it
is me. In my twenties
I
never dream he will die
by
the age of forty-five.
His
brother Dave calls from Mesa
where
he recently moved.
1
am seventy and he sixty. A man
with
my grandfather’s face
walks
right up to me and hugs me.
At
The Flying Monkey Saloon,
Dave
sits beside me drinking
a
Bud draft. One by one,
senior
single women
suddenly
slide in the booth
smiling.
Introduce me
to your brother, they say.
Some
Have It. Some Don’t
the
bear of a man
I
meet
in
Codependents
Anonymous
explains.
He
sniffs the air
with
his snout
as
he chomps
on
his bacon burger.
A musky scent
pours from her pores.
He
points
to
wolf woman
with
furry
arms
and legs
eating
a bowl
of
chili clear
across
the café.
What scent
do I give off?
I
ask,
crossing
my
legs
shaved
smooth
and
scented
with
lavender
lotion.
I am not
attracted
to you,
he
says
with
a smirk.
I
breathe
a
sigh of relief
as
he reeks
of
sweat,
garlic
and onions.
Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published eleven poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014,) What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021) and Survivors, Saints and Sinners (Cyberwit 2022,) Kiddos & Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022,) The Vultures are Circling (Cyberwit 2023) and The Leading Ladies in My Life (Cyberwit June 2023.) Her twelfth collection, My Grandfather is a Cowboy is forthcoming from Cyberwit in January 2024. Her work has also appeared in more than 50 different journals. She is the editor of Storyteller Poetry Journal, dedicated to promoting narrative poetry.
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