Wednesday, July 25, 2007

TAMMY FAYE'S TEARS

by Earl J. Wilcox


There is no order to it,
the reading of the Sunday papers.
I begin with sports, sometimes.
Other times, the comics come first.
My wife dawdles with the Section 1A,
finishes it between sips of coffee,
bites of buttered rolls,
the taking of morning meds,
with tiny gulps of OJ.

On days when the news is bad,
I prefer travel or weddings,
both seem preferable to war
and crime and malice and greed,
topics of great interest to mankind---
and me.

Today, Tammy Faye’s face is splattered across the front
of our local papers,
as she and PTL were our neighbors
for many years, here,
before preachers’ tears
about sin and sex
were commonplace
in the Sunday papers.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.