a convention of very large women is in town.
they wear name tags, shop, sweat in the mid-summer sun,
call out loudly to one another across their hotel lobby.
three young boys play in front of the hotel, outside double glass doors,
by bronze statues of business men and women, tourists,
authentic natives and a bronze boy on a bronze skateboard.
the real boys start fooling with the skateboard boy, trying to pull him down.
he won’t come down. he is bronze and anchored in place.
the real boys open the double glass doors and slip into the hotel lobby.
a young woman who is not attending the convention walks by the boys.
she’s wearing what once were called come-fuck-me pumps,
this season’s footwear fashion. her clothes are simple and tell
of money to spend: sleeveless cream blouse, black knit pants.
she wears black-framed glasses. her hair is blonde.
she adjusts the shoulder straps of her brassiere with one hand
as she walks past the three young boys. they watch her, then they enter
a gift shop in the lobby. they wander the shop, picking up and setting down
various trinkets. the proprietress pretends not to watch their
every move, but she is watching their every move. they buy a lollipop
and leave the shop. the proprietress thanks them, says, be good boys.
they say nothing, don’t look back.
the young woman walks by again, graceful as a gazelle.
the very large women, conventional, waddle by,
shouting, grunting, and dripping sweat.
the three boys screech like monkeys, dashing across the lobby to the doors.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
just the other side of a smooth-wire fence is a farmer’s field,
its stubble side-lit in sunlight softened by thin, filtering clouds.
geese are flocking to breakfast, gathering in a corner of the field.
closer to the center stalk sandhill cranes, walking their tentative walk,
as though there may be something in the field no crane
would care to step in. their knees are on backwards.
a flight of three cranes circles the field in a lazy, graceful figure-eight.
a standing crane calls, its cry the clacking loudness of a party favor amplified.
the three cranes coast and flap their ways to landing. they eat a while,
stalking the field with the other cranes. hot-air balloons drift slowly by overhead.
with a sudden whooshing flutter the cranes ascend and swim the air.
calls of other cranes come from nearby woods. the geese send up
a parliament of honks. the burners of the passing balloons sigh great sighs.
the cranes head south. the geese will follow.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Good afternoon folks. I am Grace Lynn. I am a hundred years young. I’m here to protest our school district’s book-banning policy. My husband Robert Nichol was killed in action in World War II, at a very young age, he was only 26, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned. They stopped the free press, banned and burned books. The freedom to read, which is protected by the First Amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth. Banned books, and burning books, are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am a mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you very much. Thank you.” – Grace Lynn, at Martin County, Florida, school board meeting, March 21, 2023 (quoted by Brandon Gage, in AlterNet, March 22, 2023)