Joe, Shoshauna and Sharon by Sharon Waller Knutson

Arizona must be hot,
Joe says as he stands
under a California redwood
scratching his scruffy beard.

Shoshauna is waiting
in Wisconsin, I say
as he opens the door
of his trashed truck,

crammed with carpenter
and car fixing tools.
Just in case, he says.
as we head for the highway.

On the 1-80 East passing
through Wyoming we spot
a buxom blonde in skinny
jeans staring at a tire flatter

than roadkill on a Toyota
on the side of the road
and hear a baby crying
from the back seat

piled with blankets, shirts,
boxes and baby clothes.
Joe pulls over, grabs
his lug wrench and jack

and removes the spare
tire from her trunk
as she hands me the blue
eyed baby and a bottle.

She peers down the road
like she’s looking for the man
who left the rainbow
rimming her right eye.

Joe tosses the flat in the trunk,
hands her a fistful of greenbacks.
I’ll pay you back I promise,
she says as she takes the baby.

Shoshauna shows up
in sunglasses in her sedan
at a rest top in Nebraska
and pulls out her picnic basket.

Joe grins under his floppy hat,
Shoshauna smiles, her dark
hair and my blonde hair
blanketing our backs as we chew

chicken and buttermilk biscuits.
Are your poems true stories? I ask.
I have to admit sometimes
I embellish, says Shoshauna.

Mine are true until the poem
finds its own truth, Joe says,
What about yours? But before
I can answer I wake up in Idaho

and the bell is ringing
and the clock says 4:30 am
and we race to the hospital
bed to get my mother-in-law up.



Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in a wildlife habitat in Arizona. She has published several poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields by Flutter Press and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her work has also appeared in various journals, most recently in One Art, Mad Swirl, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Poetry Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review and The Song Is…