Wayne F Burke

Karen

"The Carpenter's" singing inside my

head

LONE  LI  ness is such

sad

music, makes me feel soft, mushy

I think of Karen's smile and

sensitivity, her

fragility even

as I walk the hard streets

of a granite-headed city

sadly lacking

aesthetically

don't you remember

I told you I loved you

bay

bee

yea, I do--

the slightly crooked mouth

who has

only just begun

to walk

then learned to run--

my feelings begin to

leak onto the

crooked street

until a pickup truck

blasts some country-fried 

whah whah

and I snap back

to the indifferent

reality

of where I am.

Poor

the O'Ryan's across the

street in their sway-backed

shackle ranch; nothing fit--

crooked stairs and lives;

the old lady a harridan

screaming at trespassers from

a window; chickens loose

in yard and barn; six kids,

a father who worked in the

lime kiln, and sat in the

backyard after work

drinking beer and looking

like an escaped convict...

They gave apples on

Halloween not candy.

Flattop

tiny gros beaks in the

tree outside

with flattop haircuts

like guys who did not want crew-cuts

back in the early 1960's

in the old neighborhood

in the old hometown

in a narrow valley

between two mountain ranges

that squeezed the houses and

streets closer together

each year.