You got the tattoos you always wanted. The two betta fish on your arm, sunk in red, the black spider lilies across your stomach. You love the kids you teach now. First graders who will do anything you want as long as you say, you really disappointed me last time!
POLKA FOR EIGHT FREAKING HOURS,
my daughter cries out as she cowers,
taste in this music is not ours.
Polka for eight freaking hours.
It was a life spent, mostly
stooped over things.
The counter at the butcher’s shop
her parents owned,
all through both wars,
wrapping bacon in brown paper parcels
as bombs fell
and far away, men she loved
were shot at
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
It’s about a dark night, a path, thick woods.
The light was nailed shut, then opened like a door.
The cabin you found had a hard dirt floor,
cobwebs, an old guitar made of plywood.
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Why would you build a house with no nails?
Why plant, till, harvest a crop
in whose taste you find no savor?
The bees of the field scan the dances of their sisters
before penning a path to the lavender patch—
a harmonica-breathing picker of tunes,
wayfaring stranger, foot-stomping pilgrim
of sorrow unseen in honeysuckle and wildwood
flowers high on a mountain his daddy