Gumshoe Gets Vision

Being a Verse of a Larger Story

gumshoe’ll get a case
of ivy in his eyes
thinks he sees sister
baby everywhere
he stops
at the diner
in the woolworth’s
down at ben franklin’s
at the dairy queen
in the piggly wiggly
down to first corner
bank on a bench
in front of the
cannon in front of the
court house
circling around the
square
he’ll get a case
of shakes
when she’s seen
too much when
she’s all he’ll see
for days on end
even mabelline down
at lucky’s
don’t rearrange his
eyes anymore like
she used to
but she used to
gumshoe knows junior
seed’s been around
cooling his heels
in the funeral home
parking lot some
nights some nights
kicking stones at the lake
gumshoe figures he
‘d kick stone too if his
daddy called him junior
seed like some unhappy
pod that’ll never
stalk or leave
gumshoe nods at preach
when he’ll meet him
eye to eye
accidentally crossing
paths on some nascent
errand for the wife
or his lord
or his lord’s work
which gumshoe knows
has been truly
done since the eve
got so confused
about rights and wrongs
gumshoe figures
everything after that
just text
just an index
to those first
terrible six
days of manual
labor
get that poison ivy
in the eye again
if that’s not
sister baby high
and proud
in the testifyin’
aisle at
tg&y
gumshoe’ll have to blink
twice to make
sure he didn’t see
what he saw

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved