Joe Cottonwood

Joe Cottonwood has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest books of poetry are Foggy Dog and Random Saints.

Walter Johnson fires a fastball,
Elvis Presley crowds the plate

At a tender age you learn to glaze windows
when you pitch tennis balls to the brick wall
of your house. You learn curveball and fast,
you try the knuckle, sweep glass.

You learn to hate the mulberries
that squish over the pitching mound.

You play next door with Mary Anne Morningstar
and you love the Elvis songs blaring
from her tinny transistor radio
as much as you hate the menacing hillbilly accent
of her full bourbon father who yodels
“Love me tay-ender, Love me troo-a-oo-a-oo.”

You find you can improve your arm
only as far as your body will allow,
one fat pitch can erase ten good ones,
there’s always some batter with a better eye,
some coach with a mean streak.

You learn your back yard was formerly
farmland owned by Walter Johnson,
one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
Your mulberries fed his chickens.
May his spirit feed your arm.

You develop hair down there
and see Mary Anne burst into tears
when you ask to see hers.
You jump back as she launches
a stone like a fastball into the radio
smashing it to jewels of plastic.

You learn she hates Elvis
and she hates her dad for his pelvis
and she loves God instead,
and you think maybe you love Mary Anne
like Elvis loves his momma
in a tender non-icky way.

You learn to cut glass, to curl putty with a knife.
You learn Walter Johnson after baseball
became an incompetent small time politician
and Elvis in Vegas turned squishy as mulberry.

You learn the easy passage from genius to fool.
Constellations fade with the dawn.
Remember Mary Anne.
Remember the stars.

To a hummingbird warrior

Sparkling you hover,
staring into my eyes. You intimidate
with har-oom of wings.

This coffee my only nectar
with a squirt of canned whipped pseudo-cream
which embarrasses me, my love of fluffy crap
while you, tiny bird, need glucose to survive.

A man with weed whacker
clears a drainage ditch by the road,
works nearer, nearer whining like a
giant mosquito in a cloud of gasoline fumes,
nearer wearing bug-eye goggles,
bright orange ear guards,
nearer bright yellow safety vest
like a toxic flower.

Zip a green bullet you fly.
You poke his face. A gloved hand swats.
Winged syringe, you stab his neck.
He lifts weed whacker as an ungainly club
swinging mortal combat to your fragile bones
but the cutting string slaps his leg.
Startled he drops the machine and—
Zip you fly toward our rose garden.

Har-oom har-oom.
May my coffee be so sweet,
my life so pure, so tiny brave.