Russian Girls in Trinity County, California

Visiting Russian girls. Very pretty.
Speak English? "Little. Tiny."

Apollo 13 movie -- "Ochen!" but "complix."
Better, rented Chaplins, where no one speaks.

At huge Cosco store in Redding, huge eyes, amazed:
everywhere, in white coats, "Snacky ladies,"

sample foods, "bis platna," free for all!
In Weaverville, at Mountain Marketplace they call

"hippie store" they do
"good shopping...in full silence." This is true?

No words? -- bananas: herb tea:
pistachios -- shy Russian girls, so very

ochen, very
pretty -- "We say

man we giving money to:
'sank you, 'sank you'."

---

The Forty

A bit below ground-level
down in the high school gym
they're giving a celebratory dinner
for the 40 major poets
of Redding, California.

I'm #41, out here on the sidewalk
looking down through the metal grillwork
at poets for the first time brought together
over stuffed mushrooms and stuffed trout,
downing wines and beers and pecan pie.

Now ribboned medals are hung about the necks
of each of the 40 poets, and each
recites a poem, commencing with #1
-- "Hymn to Hermes, Blinded in a Driveby" --
continuing to #2 -- "He Touched Me...Lots" --

and finishing with this overview by me,
created here on the sidewalk, on the spot,
concerning the celebratory dinner
for the 40 major poets of Redding, California,
within which, further on, I plan

sketch-portraits of their childhood sweethearts,
I'll mention their favored films, nicknames,
height, weight, vital stats,
most oft-mentioned bird, marital-whatever...
but for now it's just a pleasure

to see the way they tease and taunt each other,
many a little florid, a little tipsy...
all in all it's been quite a party,
the poets' husbands, friends, and wives,
plus the Mayor and the Fire Chief, making toasts.

Poet #17 suggests: "Let's do this yearly!"
Poet #22: "Hourly!
They decide to dub themselves "The Forty."
Some are fat and jolly; some sensitive, twitchy.
You couldn't wish for a nicer celebratory dinner.

---

Maple Tree

Tree, you Old Man of the Tribe
yielding the neighbors intricate shade,

in autumn burning to the bone,
through winter elegantly brave

and then in bud again a bride,
all spring a Daphne to fall in love with,

in full leaf bearing my father's essence,
his great sad face intensely calm --

whatever person you are, my tree,
immense in summer before the house,

we balance pain: I who have left...
you who can never come after.

---

A Polka for Gail

Gail pulls on astounding socks
-- hot pink, with yellow polka dots,
dancerly scattered polka dots
that swirl all about like the polka.

Her feet show off like two peacocks
as she tells how she came to own such socks:
a Christmas present from her son,
his taste as wild as he was young.

Now seventeen, man-of-the-house,
he writes, when she travels, about the use
of warm-up tricks for the car, jots
sober advice to distant mailbox

which stirs from her the sort of smile
that brags of the flair of his sonly style.
It's clear to see she loves him lots,
this almost-man who gave her socks

that dance her about like polka dots.

---

Wildman Sundae

When I sodajerked at Uncle Harry's,
nine years old, my pay each night
was a 'wildman sundae,' teaching the trick
of building to the very brink,
to the wavy rims of the sundae glass,
with iced cream, fudge, syrupy walnuts,
trading, say, some butter pecan
for more sweet goop like strawberry jam
spread tight against fluted sides. I'd pile
it up, rich stuff, the final touch
the cherry gentled on whipped cream cloud
to lord it over the nightly bliss
I wolfed that summer when I was nine,
so tellingly paid at Uncle Harry's.

---

Cousin Barbara

Freckled, cart-wheeling Cousin Barbara...
the two of us wrestled, twelve years old,
tumbling in bed when her mother walked in:
immediate edict of separation:
finished forever, extravagance!

Many a wrestle on many a bed
has brought back the musk of that day again,
she now the mother of five large boys,
both of us once in our feelings twelve,
new in our bodies, new and amazed

© 1996, The Blue Penny Quarterly. All rights reserved.