Wanda Morrow Clevenger- Three Poems

Wanda Morrow Clevenger is a Carlinville, IL native.  Over 356 pieces of her work appear in 129 print and electronic journals and anthologies.  Yes, she does the math.

 

 

3 am cause

 

those months dragging on

to spare you further anguish

I wept into your pillow

the atrocities – preview

of more to come

 

the furnace cycled on

and off

the sun still afraid

to show its

yellowbelly face

 

your pillow was soft

and smooth, cool

on my cheek

more than sympathetic

to the 3 am cause

 

 

Breakfast in Boonville

 

We take I-70 west to visit our kids.  The adult store

and gentlemen's club strip from Missouri to Kansas

where notorious billboards elbow dine-n-dash and

antique alleys: Artichoke Annie's, Enchanted Frog,

Good JuJu . . . and W.D. Pickers Antique Mall where

pickier pickers pick.

 

And we did make an antique shop this trip –

Ridge in Shawnee;

right arm for jadeite but they kindly cut us a deal

on an orphaned iron porch chair.

 

Seated along the window wall under a Triple “AAA”

Rootbeer sign in Cracker Barrel this side of Kansas,

I watched a woman place a paper napkin on the table

then salt it like a corncob coaster for her iced tea. 

I said to Monte, “There's something you don't see.” 

 

Traveling east home, in Boonville at marker 106

we landed on a great breakfast spot easy to spot,

same exit as an adult store

near enough the interstate to sans signage;

 

the XXX painted on the roof

stuck out big as braille.

 

 

please show interest

 

sales manager

Mr. John Fan represented

a business vivid

in China for years

 

a new product of

quality and best price

–– cardboard coffin

boxes by the net––

raw materials friendly

to the misspelled envirement

best corrugated composite panels

competitive in my

American market

 

size 210x71x42cm

bearing at least 200 kg

color: cherry, oak, black

and interior decorative material

all custom

as requested

 

the product replaced

expensive wooden coffins

suitable for burial

and cremation

 

a gifted pitchman,

how Mr. Fan knew

of my recent trysts

with death

was uncanny

 

he solicited if I might please

show interest of attachments

as he also provided caskets

              for pets