Benjamin Nash : Poetry: June 2021

Poetry

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family has lived in the south for around 400 years.

Something Simple

The days are getting longer and longer,

a deputy marshal got a shave after
killing a man on the Western.

I want something simple like when
my grandfather sliced open a
watermelon with a big knife on
his front porch one summer day,

special like a silver dollar used to be
or a can of peaches for a
cowboy on the trail and sleeping out.

On the news people are looking for
justice and are fighting the police,

the police are throwing tear gas and
are trying to keep us safe
from rioters and the looters.

My father told me once that a German
prisoner stole one of his father’s
watermelons in Texas during WWII,

he thought he needed it.

I want something simple like a slice
of cantaloupe or to go to a used
bookstore with an orange cat
sleeping on the counter,

something good and peaceful,

on the gardening show they are
looking at a Cherokee Chief
red flowering dogwood
and then a batch of yellow flag irises.water