Last Week

Ronald Lawrence Jones

One mutant tulip bloomed outside my door,
an anemone, the size of a dinner plate, red-veined,
pink. Those damned lawn chemicals.
Then, hoopties thumping bass, drive up and down
the street, rattle windows and shake walls.

Pause friend, while I light another cigarette
and let you in on the rest. Listen: The cancer
tests are negative. I'm waiting for the valet
to bring the car around. I've a fine buzz
on Demerol when this old guy with busted,
braced-up legs wheels in. He's got a harp
in a holder around his neck and a red
squeeze box in his lap. He's playing,
"Nearer My God to Thee."

The grass needs cutting, so I drink a beer
and mow. And the tulip? To hell with it.
The kid comes home with the wife.
You'd have thought that tulip was a shrine
to the Blessed Virgin. I turn the TV to the news
and see the cemetery in my home town has been
bulldozed, that even the dead have moved on.

Ronald Lawrence Jones