On Location
The poem won’t come out of his trailer.
The crew fidgets, though they’ve only waited
fifty-seven years for this.
The poem can’t find his motivation––
why expose himself like this––
first day of kindergarten, abandoned
by his mother at the playground
in a blue serge ensemble,
short pants and a tight beanie cap
with a tasteless visor
and a button on top––
God, did she buy this off the mannequin
at Brooks Brothers?––and then
the skinned knee––fucking long coat,
so stupid, and worse to step on it
while pushing a stupid wagon––
and the tears, goddammit,
so humiliating even for a child––
and does the poem want to go
back there, acting out the whole world
of suffering in miniature, the day ruined,
the knee bleeding, the coat
and beanie and short pants
that make him look like a pantywaist?
Why would he come out, to look
like such a little mewling fool
in front of everyone, a whole crew
with sandwiches and makeup
and klieg lights, and then the director
framing the scene––Look at the sad
little crybaby, losing control
of his world––and the editing,
and then perhaps a visit
to a workshop, where a balding man
intones in Churchillian cadence,
I, too, wore short pants––
and an older woman in bifocals
and a bun says, It wasn’t
any easier in a dress.
• • •
What’s Next
Summer runs through your future
like a green illusion that says
Take your time, life is a river
bordered with magnolias
and ladies with white parasols
flirting with plantation owners
who serve strong coffee and smoke
enough aromatic Cuban cigars
to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
The days appear endless; the nights
a dark suggestion of the twinkling
garden of eternity. In such company
it would feel unseemly to speak
of September. Ice is only for your tea.
Frost is a distant memory that clings
to the forest of fir trees past
many mountain ranges still rippling
with the sweet grassy fragrance of sunshine.
Don’t try to think past June; no one can.
Pour yourself another pleasant beverage
and relax with that happy genius, the sun.
• • •
Will Walker lives in the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco with his wife, Valerie, and their dog. He is a former editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He has published a full-length collection, Wednesday after Lunch, available on Amazon, as well as a chapbook, Carrying Water, published by Puddinghouse Press. Walker’s main claim to literary fame is having pizza with J. D. Salinger in Clarement, New Hampshire, and offering to teach windsurfing to Norman Mailer. Mailer declined, saying “I’m working on many different levels at once.”