Country Boy
She said, “I can’t understand it.
I never met anyone like you;
I mean, who doesn’t like nature?”
And that’s when I thought about
my living in the country, and how I
much preferred the police sirens
that woke me up in the Bronx
to the damn them to hell coyotesÂ
that did the same thing, but kept on
at it and never stopped howling.
And how the exhaust fumes from
the city buses smelled bad, but the crap
they spread, to make things grow
on the farm next door, smelled worse.
And how my eyes puffed-up, and my nose
ran during allergy season here, like it was
racing at the Olympics, which is something
that never happened when I lived downstate.
And so, I continued to ruminate like a man
caught on a turntable. Then, with all this pecking
at my mind, I bent down and looked with care
into the face of the woman I call the Belle
of Northern New York, the one with the gap
between her two front teeth, and the sweet blue
eyes I once said were hazel, and, after all this
due consideration, answered, “Honey, I don’t!”
(Blueline)
