Palm Sunday in Oscaloosa

Hell-sprung old broads from Corntown carrying plastic bags full of marzipan Easter eggs,
leading Pomeranians and Shelties and
wearing white lambswool/angora-blend sweaters.

Worth your life to crack a dirty joke at the church picnic,
cast aspersions on the pickle-relish potato salad, or
advocate cornbread over white-bread stuffing for the sacrificial fowl.

How my mother-in-law’s family survived it—
Jewish intellectuals, a real estate trader and a concert musician,
refugees from a burning Europe landing in Middle America as if Oscaloosa were Roswell.
They hid things
like any blue-haired grandma hiding Easter eggs for the kids. Except
what they hid
they never meant for us to find.

--word salad

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside