This day is all kinds of crazy town
By Tania Runyan
It’s Calamity Jane stomping through Deadwood
with whiskey tucked in her buckskins, busted pipes
and distorted sirens, candidates bouncing frisbees
off children’s heads at the 4th of July parade.
It’s pitbulls chomping lawn flamingoes
and young couples panting against the mailboxes,
electricians cherry picking kites from the trees.
Everyone needs something from me. Approvals. Replies.
Permission slips and hot hors-d'oeuvres. But I’m off
to see a woman old enough to remember
when the DMV was a field of goldenrod. Screw em all,
she laughs. She slouches on her crumbling stoop,
chain-drinking Fresca. Wind rustles her nightgown.
They can wait, she snorts. And don’t you worry.
When you die, they’ll get a computer mail telling them so.
with whiskey tucked in her buckskins, busted pipes
and distorted sirens, candidates bouncing frisbees
off children’s heads at the 4th of July parade.
It’s pitbulls chomping lawn flamingoes
and young couples panting against the mailboxes,
electricians cherry picking kites from the trees.
Everyone needs something from me. Approvals. Replies.
Permission slips and hot hors-d'oeuvres. But I’m off
to see a woman old enough to remember
when the DMV was a field of goldenrod. Screw em all,
she laughs. She slouches on her crumbling stoop,
chain-drinking Fresca. Wind rustles her nightgown.
They can wait, she snorts. And don’t you worry.
When you die, they’ll get a computer mail telling them so.
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Tania Runyan is the author of the poetry collections What Will Soon Take Place (2017), Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, and Delicious Air, which was awarded Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2007. Her guides How to Read a Poem and How to Write a Poem are used in classrooms across the country. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review, Atlanta Review, Indiana Review, and the Paraclete book Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011.
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