Fall 2015, Volume 19

Poetry by Diana Decker

Driggs

You are not a graying
dishwashing
lightly-humming woman
suddenly arrested by a memory
that has you glazed and staring through
and long past
the steamed-up kitchen window.

You’re the long-haired girl
living at the foot of a great mountain
slinging grub for the boarders
throwing your knife in your off-time.

Cowboys passing through
teach you to play poker:
“Ante up, sugar.”

You’re the lean girl in faded jeans
bellied up to the bar at the Bucksnort
The man in the Stetson with the beard and dancing eyes
sidled right up next to you.

You’re the girl smoking a hand-roll
on a rock by a high cold rushing stream,
making plans to hunt and kill a rattler
to skin and dry and make a hatband
for this man who’s just about to break
your darlin’ little heart.

 

 

 


BIO: Diana Decker's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Poppy Road Review and Silver Birch Press. She writes, sings, and counts the birds on her small farm in New York.