Five Poems by Sharon Waller Knutson

 

Heir to the Throne

 

Just as my father is getting ready

to check out of Hotel Earth,

my nephew swims through my sister’s

birth canal and when the two sets

of piercing black eyes and bald heads

 

meet they smile as if gazing

into a mirror. When my father takes

a bow and exits the stage,

his grandson takes up his passion

for cooking and reading and writing.

 

I see my father’s smiling eyes

and hear his laughter as I watch

my nephew receive his diploma

in English and recite the works

of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Poe

 

to a classroom full of students

who find him humorous and brilliant

and writing short stories in his office

while his wife and children sleep

just like his grandfather, my father.

 

And now on my nephew’s 39^th birthday

I watch my father ‘s tall slim body bend

over the backyard grill as his grandson

flips sirloin steaks in the sunlight

and serves them on paper plates

 

with the grace of his grandfather

who is somewhere grilling steaks

and teaching grammar content

his grandson is carrying on

in the kingdom he built for him.

 

Larry and Gerry Gene

 

Closer than cousins,

better than big brothers,

Larry, Gerry Gene and I

ride through our childhood

Larry as Roy Rogers,

Gerry as Gene Autry

and me as Dale Evans,

with our dogs, Smoky, Pepper,

and Tootsie trotting behind.

 

After high school Larry joins

the Army and Gerry gets

married and I move

to Billings to work

on the Gazette. In a Billings

Bar, Gerry, his wife, my sister

and I drink foaming beer

in mugs as the country

crooner sings cheating songs.

 

A big man grabs me with muscular

arms and pulls me on his lap,

and as he rubs his red beard against

my face and tries to kiss my cheek,

I struggle to get away. Let go of me,

I protest. Gerry and the others laugh.

 

Don’t you recognize  me, Cuz?

the stranger says in Larry’s

voice. I laugh and hug him tight.

When did you get home?

I ask. Now Gerry is gone, leaving

Larry and me to connect on computers

with the help of our grandchildren.

 

 

Uncle Worship

 

My mother’s brothers

and brothers-in-law

were my teachers

and preachers.

 

Uncle Jack taught me

to drive a car

in-between his divorce

and dalliances.

 

Uncle Bill and Uncle Frank,

carpenters like Jacob,

taught me by example

marriage is forever.

 

My other Uncle Bill,

a policeman, taught me

the law works when he caught

my grandmother’s swindler.

 

Uncle Emil, the train

conductor, with a red

nose of a circus clown,

taught me to laugh.

 

But it was Uncle Roger,

the frugal businessman

and Rock Hudson lookalike,

who taught me the most

 

when he rode his bicycle

as he did every morning

across a busy street

and a car wrecked our world.

 

 

The Big Red Barn

 

My father lifts heavy

bales of hay stored

in the big red barn to feed

Zephyr, his Arabian, Sissy,

my Shetland pony and Francis,

his friend, Buss’s mule.

 

The barn sits behind the house

daddy rents for twenty dollars

a month on a residential

street in a small Montana town

in the nineteen forties and fifties.

 

By the time I am a teenager

and all the animals are gone

at 2 am one Sunday morning

we wake up to orange flames

shooting against a charcoal sky,

sirens screaming, voices

shouting, smoke billowing

and watch the old barn burn.

 

Firemen find Marlboro butts

and declare the fire arson.

My mother blames the couple

next door leaning on the fence

laughing, smoking and chugging

Coors like they are watching

a fireworks display on July 4^th.

 

But my money is on Ricky

and Johnny who brag in school

how they bash the brains

of cats with baseball bats

in the barn as we sleep

while they suck on Marlboros

and blow smoke in our faces.

 

 

Friday is Fish Night

 

We were not Catholic or religious

but every Friday for supper

my mother would fry trout

my grandfather, uncles or father

fished out of the Stillwater River.

 

In Billings, Butte and Yakima

my friends and I would gather

at the All You Could Eat Fish Fry

where we would chow down

on battered cod, chips and coleslaw.

 

At Fisherman’s Wharf

and the Seattle Water Front

on Friday’s we’d dine on fresh

crab, shrimp and sushi

with a salad or clam chowder.

 

Every Friday my mother-in-law

would flour and pan fry fresh

bass, bluegill, perch or trout

my father-in-law caught

in the fishing holes of Southeast Idaho.

.

It’s Friday, my husband says,

in our home in the Arizona desert

as he fishes from the freezer

Wal-Mart salmon, Swai or tilapia

and pops it in the microwave.

 

 

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 2024..Her work has also appeared in Poetry Breakfast, Autumn Sky Poetry Review, Poetry Hunger X,  Lothlorien, GAS Poetry, Art and Music, The Rye Whiskey Review, Black Coffee Review,  ONE ART,  Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam,  Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review, Beatnik Cowboy, The Five-Two, Impspired and others.