1

B.L. Wayburn loved to say

After all’s sed and done

around here more gets sed than done,

and I’ve come to believe that’s best

It’s all gone fast

the season, the year, our lives

in a whirlwind with fire and rain from the gods

tearing up the gift of good earth

and the faster it went

the more we could see the only thing

that changed was us and the calendar

All the rest stayed pretty much the same

2

Reverend Strayhan’s fat wife

got fungus in her navel

that turned rot before they could

find it and get down to it

she died from the outside in

Coy choked on a dayold jelly donut

for half off with free coffee so bad

he had a double hernia

prayer and the Lord couldn’t heal

so he wore a jockey strap and a truss

until Dr. Tubbs gave him the indigent rate

to sew his rupture shut

after he agreed we shouldn’t have to

listen about the injustice any more

J.L. Biggins died of the heart attack

and Arlis Jamerson had such a stroke

he can only sit in a wheelchair and drool

but B.L. Wayburn's boy got discharged

for the convenience of the Army

in time to come back and take over

the cafe after B.L. and the widow Wheaton

cashed in on the farmhouse fire and sold

the front half of the place to Sonny Gosset

who drilled a well and planted alfafa

and gave a 99 year lease on the back 160

to Williamson’s Associates on speculation

for a subdivision and trailerhouse park

after the insurance money cleared

so they could get married and go

on a honeymoon to Paris, Idaho

to see his kinsfolk there

and if it was time enough left

pull that little camper trailerhouse all the way

down to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

so he could see for himself

what it was like to have his whole body

down in a hole besides a coal mine

where he could be like Moses Pharoah

and reach out and feel the dark as black

as the inside of the Bible

3

E.U. sed oncet

that he heard the voices

while he was mowing

out to Mr. Cumming’s place sed

The slipperiest thing on earth is time

what’s coming sneaks up slow and quiet

like glue drying or road tar melting

but the past slides out the back door

like wishes and prayers covered with White Rose Salve

and chased by banshees

4

We got our gospel at the shrine

of the Wayburne Pig

where I learned to love the good news

from those old men more than life

E.U. and I had one unspoken wish

to someday sit in a front booth

and let our words mingle with theirs

until one Christmas morning in the mirror

there were faces we almost didn’t recognize

behind Tommy Minor at the coffeecounter

and in a stroke blinding as Paul’s Damascus light

we saw the evidence of the miracle of time

We had become a part of what it is

that we wanted most to say and do

and while that may not be churchhouse heaven

for the likes of me and E.U.

for the time being

it’ll moren do

5

That all they are to it.

David Lee