Dorothy Gale: The Post-Oz Years
A sucker for smart guys, Dorothy Gale,
after graduating from Radcliffe with a doctorate
in anthropology, stayed in Cambridge for its dating
scene but soon grew bored of scholarly discourse
falling short as foreplay. She wanted a roll in the hay,
so she returned to the home of her dreamy Kansas
girlhood, where Scarecrow watched over the long
fertile fields of corn. He’d come far since Oz,
taking night classes in humanities at the local
community college. Tuesday evenings & weekends,
Dorothy & Scarecrow went head to head in Scrabble—
he a keen strategist, making multiple words in a single play
by laying the lettered tiles parallel to ones already on the board;
she a lover of words, aching to make mauve, pecan, canopy.
No matter who won the game, they both scored big
in the end, sweaty & breathless & coming
apart in the corner stall of the barn. But Dorothy
was a junkie for adventure, always off on some emerald
jaunt in her mind, the everyday sameness of the farm
not shiny enough, & Scarecrow knew this.
So when Tin Man began showing up at the place—
to fix a squeaky door or a leaky pump or a clogged
drain—Scarecrow hung his head in the books
& in his fieldwork, afraid of a match
of wit versus sentiment with his old friend
from the road. Tin Man brought Dorothy roses
& chocolates; he wrote poems for his love dot,
his oil of dee. But his gestures were too mechanical;
he cried too damn much. So, though she knew
she would pine for his woodwork, everything
in the house started functioning again. Truth is,
Dorothy wanted a mate with more mettle, more leap
in his step. So, that winter, when Lion came by the farm
collecting clothes & toys for the annual holiday drive,
Dorothy invited him in for supper, sunflower biscuits
& a carrot-mushroom-corn loaf hot in the oven.
They toasted to witches, wicked & good, laughed
about the time she slapped him hard on the nose
for chasing Toto. While Dorothy talked about her
dissertation on the migration habits of Homo munchkinensis,
Lion, having barely touched his plate, excused himself,
ambled to the sofa, stretched regally across
& over the length of it, & fell asleep.
A vegetarian since her undergrad days—
a radical turn from Auntie Em’s home cooking—
Dorothy knew she couldn’t be picky
about certain lifestyle choices in the dating pool.
But, as a chronic insomniac (since the twister of ’39),
she had to steer clear of snorers, and Lion’s snores
were far less sexy than his roars.
Discouraged, disheartened, dumbfounded,
Dorothy Gale did what any self-respecting woman would do:
she went out & found a new pair of shoes.
