Carol Gillespie
I'm traveling through the ranches in Myakka,
and the dust and the heat and the humped-back brahmas
are starting to get to me, so I pull off
at some windowless, cement-block bar,
but no one's there except the bartender
and a young girl on a stage in the corner,
singing country-western, blues. Her name's Carol she says,
she’s a music major at FSU, making some extra money
for herself, for her little baby girl Cheryl,
and I know this sounds like I'm making it up,
but when I tell her my name, she looks at me
like my hair's on fire, says she's read my poems,
Well, some of them. Not bad, she says,
Especially the one with the small boy,
and I'm wondering whether she's putting me on
or she's crazy, and then she tells me