Someone Knows this Dance

I.
The woman in the turquoise dress
she was baptized in scrubbing
the front steps.

She's caught
a heart in a bug net
made of bent hangers
and fishnet stockings.

Buying half priced
seed and wooing
trinkets for the butterfly
garden she tends.

The glass bird sings
too fragile for this wind.


II.
You've really got to belt it out in Nebraska because that wind carries what you say and drops it one state over and by then it's too late.  He's gone.


And, anyway Honey, that ain't dust.  That's gold.  When are you going to tell your story?  It's some fighting thing inside you that keeps the words from drowning in your own ink.  You'd better tell it to God.  That's what I'm saying.


III.
Oh, listen.  How long
till I know how?
Long time since I let myself
go.  Long time gone.
Who's going to call
that child back in for supper?

I'm hungry, too.