"These two pieces stand as signature pieces of my poetry." WEM

Elbie Hayes ruined his
expensive shoes
squashing around the autumn
desolation
of a sharecropper farm
in Caddo County

Okie boy
turned fifty
searching for anything that
had belonged
to his father
when he was fighting the
Great Depression

Kicked at a lump
behind the caved-in cellar
and uncovered a rusty
Prince Albert tobacco can

Stowed it away
as he would a saint's bones
in his Lincoln Continental
and headed back to Bakersfield
.

He doesn't come to me on
Sundays in his good serge suit
and black string tie, piously
carrying a Bible, never

But put me in a Saturday town
of khaki men with Southwest
faces and rich slow tongues

And he will blow around the corner
on a Prince Albert wind, live like Cherokee
blue-glass, as in Scotch, eyes
carrying a little poke of candy
maybe Jellybeans

Spot me with no trouble
smile as he did last time
and say Sister,
you wanna go eat a bowl
of chili at Poor Boy's Cafe

And I will get up from the bench
in front of J. C. Penney's
and go to meet him
as I always do