America 1950
by Terry Boykie

Shower's over.
Tattooed boys, their negro malice quelled
for an instant by the midday sun,
play mechanic with a '35 Plymouth.
A biplane sputters; "No Worry Bleach"
flutters behind. Full-bellied war heroes gawk,
then retreat to the business of baseball, beer
and the late night whippings to follow.
Weaned from her benefactress, a waif,
encased in steel, soon-to-die, suckles a fudgecicle;
the drips lapped from the mud
by a mutt with three legs.
Overripe females, dresses stained with Kool Aid,
converge on a truck gutted from Anzio,
its cargo of foodstuffs not good enough for Europe.
Sam The Dented-Can Man, his right eye erased at Wake,
leers with what remains at the bundles of
bosoms cloaked in day-old grime.
An old lady (the one whose tonsils were scorched away
by the new doc right there on the front porch),
spies a tin of kraut, fat with gas,
and offers a nickel for its roiling toxins.
An ex-sailor, still a year or two away from
the brain surgeons, counters with a dime.
The auction is on;
two bits wins the can of cabbage;
carrots go for less.
White natives and refugees will eat well tonight.
 

© 2003 Terry Boykie