Oklahoma Hot

118° F., July 10, 1978

Working outdoors in July,
We fry our meat,
But we still stay sick
Half the time.

Gulp cold tea—
An infusion.
Pray for wind up in the trees.

At noon we're down;
Crippled by the sun.
Lizards are like us too,
Can't even run away.

We don't sweat
Anymore, the blades
Have bled us down,
And the grass is
Pounded where we
Fell down on it.

Even the clouds are gone
And silence at bottom
Is dizzy in the ear,
Swimming deep in a brine of sleep.

Back home in Stillwater,
Bath, with a cup of bleach thrown in,
To cut the chigger's itch;
At midnight the fan
Clogs on air gone fuzzy.

Out the back door,
The
Mimosa tree
Sings a song of Africa.

Copyright © David Dwinell 2003

My Mother Fried Chicken

Once, when I was visiting you, we
were invited to visit the famous
gorge at the edge of town.  A million
dollars had been spent to build the
asphalt golf cart road winding
up to the state park on the edge of
"The Hole," as all the locals called it.
On the way up I had a sort of premonition
Of the fate of the fashion of the day.  Earlier
I was walking with my family

Along a path that ran beside the
Gooseberry River in Minnesota, slightly
above where the river starts a series
of falls.  We were six:  brother, nephew, wife,
sister-in-law, mother and me.  My seventy-
year-old mother slipped on loose rock
and fell into the raging falls
that threw up foam on the rock face
and coated us in spray.

We had a picnic beside "The Hole," and
it was so uneventful.  One golf cart
careened out of control and a "McDonald's
shooter" erased some citizens.

Later, I found out my mother
had landed on a grassy ledge
only two feet below.  "It was
like a soft bed," she told me as
she fried chicken for supper.

Copyright © David Dwinell 2003