a poem (not by me, thankfully)
Here is my contribution to the shared poems popping up in honor of
National Poetry Month. All the cool kids are doing it, you see. I'd link to "all the cool kids" but I'm just taking a momentary break from my work and don't have the time to collect all the links. Suffice to say, if you're one of the cool kids you know who you are. If you think you're one of the cool kids and you really aren't, well, you are anyway. It's all very existential, you see.
I can honestly say that if it weren't for this poem, I would never have come to California.
Hidden Water
by Frank Stanford (1948-1978), from Ladies From Hell (1974)
A girl was in a wheelchair on her porch
And wasps were swarming in the cornice
She had just washed her hair
When she took it down she combed it
She could see
Just like I could
The one star under the rafter
Quivering like a knife in the creek
She was thin
And she made me think
Of music singing to itself
Like someone putting a dulcimer in a case
And walking off with a stranger
To lie down and drink in the dark
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