for Ozzie, Harriet and Garrison Keillor
by Lillian Baker Kennedy
that mother would just get back in the kitchen
with her high heels and her apron tied tight
around her back
that the gays would get back in the closet
and hush up
all that Chico-type talk
surging over the border in the dark
that each man would take his aluminum
lunchbox, get back in line
with all those robot appendages
forming steel and mettle, a Great Nation
on its knees before God and women
on their knees
next to some old rusty spring headboard
in a quick rent room by the overpass
concrete, metal slash – hurtling
side by side, so fast
they are still –
tractor trailers and VW Bugs.
God, what we would give
for hippies,
a few good drugs and a mass concert,
some wistful folksinger
plucking flowers and girls
and making it all round again
all coming round, like things go
and come back around.
Lillian Baker Kennedy, a 2005 Pushcart nominee, author of Tomorrow After Night (Bay River Press, 2003) and Notions (Pudding House, 2004), lives next to wild roses in Auburn, Maine.