A small girl was lost inside a deep well.
\nSomeone swam the English Channel.
\nRoosters pecked at our boots and
\neveryone was afraid of airplanes.
\nA woman named her baby Alan Ladd,
\nbut hired girls drank bottles of Moxie
\nwith aspirin inside hoping
\nfor an abortion. For dinner
\nwe ate Welsh rabbit on saltines and
\ncupfuls of junket. When you squeezed
\nthe red spot on the white bag
\nthe oleomargarine turned yellow. Every
\nnight after closing Mr. and Mrs.
\nLaFrance shot rats in the kitchen
\nof the Hartford Diner. In bed
\nmy dreams were like bags of bees. Once
\nI saw a bomb hanging from a cement wall.
\nI heard singing on the radio
\nabout Halo shampoo and played
\nyellow and blue records. Peeled
\ntinfoil from our gum wrappers.
\nKept it in a big ball. And Mr. Manning
\nkept the same fried egg on his stove for weeks.
\nBack then no one knew if vanilla was a color.
\nBack then Mr. Steinbach drank cases and cases of beer.
\nHe just wanted to live like an American, he said.<\/p>\n
Back in the day when steering wheels
\nhad knobs with naked women inside,
\nwhen farm girls cooked dandelion greens,
\nate French fries with mayonnaise,
\ncollected paper dolls and Roosevelt
\ndimes, dreamed of \u201chim\u201d
\nwith his crooked smile, potato chip
\nvoice and tight Italian pants,
\ndriving across the state line
\nto buy beer, sleeping naked
\non the porch, diving off Floating Bridge
\nto swim across the river underwater,
\nhe was guns and popcorn, raw sugar
\nand bone, molasses and wood. And
\nat night when old furniture listens
\nto music, when there are no rainbows
\nand all waters are black, when cats
\nfight and anyone can hide
\nin the spaces behind the heart, girls
\ncould smell his cigarette smoke deep
\nin the sumacs. They drank coffee Cokes
\nand made lonely visits to the mirror
\nwhen he drove by. Yes, yes, it
\nwas just like that. His sex
\nwas as sweet as bubble gum.
\nLife was salt pork, no milk gravy.<\/p>\n
The gas station attendant is closing up
\nfor the night. The register cashed out.
\nTires rolled inside. Pumps locked up.
\nHis khaki uniform is stained with oil and gas,
\nhis fingernails black. This man
\nwho looks like John Garfield is turning
\noff the lights and locking the door<\/p>\n
when a woman with high heels and red hair
\n(Rita Hayworth?) gets out of an old blue Pontiac.
\nShe wants enough gas to get home
\nor to get to work in the morning
\nor she came to pick him up after work.
\nShe is walking toward him with quick steps.
\nHis broad back to her as he locks the door,
\nhe sees her reflection in the glass
\nand the headlights of a car driving by.<\/p>\n
A few maples are rustling their dark leaves
\nbeside the station, papers blowing down the street.
\nBehind the station on a hill covered with pine trees
\na dog is barking. The sky is gray and blue and black.
\nLarge rain clouds move slowly by.
\nIt is 10:10. The town is closed for the night.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow by six the town will open again.
\nCars and people everywhere. Wet streets.
\nThe caf\u00e9 will be serving coffee to regulars,
\nbreakfast to travelers.
\nBy then someone will have found
\nthe bodies lying in the station yard.
\nThis is where their story begins.<\/p>\n
The war is over.
\nDeer are licking their wounds.
\nPigeons no longer hide on the ledge.
\nFear has been drained from the trees.<\/p>\n
The war is over.
\nWe are drinking vodka in tall blue glasses.
\nMen are vaccinated against love.
\nThe fingernails of women have grown back.<\/p>\n
The war is over.
\nThe soldiers all have chocolate behinds.
\nEach pint of milk has a new red cap.
\nSilk dresses fall apart like cobwebs.<\/p>\n
The war is over.
\nWe have discovered napping as a solution but
\ntable manners are pass\u00e9.
\nWe meet in parlors once a month to discuss poetry.<\/p>\n
The war is over.
\nEven teddy bears are running away
\nwith cupcakes in their hands.<\/p>\n
JOHN SPAULDING’S published poetry titles are Walking in Stone<\/em> (Wesleyan), The Roses of Starvation<\/em> (Riverstone), and The White Train<\/em> (LSU). In 2003 The White Train<\/em> was a winner in the National Poetry Series. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly<\/em>, The Iowa Review<\/em>, Prairie Schooner<\/em>, Poetry<\/em>, American Poetry Review<\/em>, and other periodicals. He has work forthcoming in Boston Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Watching Newsreels A small girl was lost inside a deep well. Someone swam the English Channel. Roosters pecked at our boots and everyone was afraid of airplanes. A woman named her baby Alan Ladd, but hired girls drank bottles of Moxie with aspirin inside hoping for an abortion. For dinner we ate Welsh rabbit on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":71,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions\/78"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}