Evelyn F. Katz | The Badlands Were Good to Us | Poetry
The Badlands Were Good to Us
In the Nebraska Sandhills
We drove through a dust storm
Our bodies tightening in prophecy
For the clap of impact that arrived
An instant after fear.
In Sioux Falls
We laughed the whole
stretch of badlands,
Framed by rusty spires
And harsh, cracked terrain
Stuck behind a cement truck
Its irony not lost on us.
How we always did best
on roads that did not
reveal themselves
too far ahead.
Needles Pine Road
On that stretch of road
blasted through the Black Hills,
Ponderosa pines reach
to meet pale gray granite—
cathedral spires,
white mountain goats.
They tell us
you are Mount Rushmore:
watchful,
unmoving,
set in stone.
And
I am Crazy Horse:
untamed,
rough,
unfinished.
The Beginning in the Middle
We couldn’t know
on Needles Pine Road
the old Trailblazer would die
on the way back through Iowa—
a soda shop,
a service station,
a mural:
turn-of-the-century copper
beside a bicycle
beneath a sign in sharp serifs:
MEL HAGLEBERG
ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Peaked cap.
Eyes close-set, drifting upward.
Moustache flared.
Dark double-breasted coat.
Brass buttons.
Wide leather belt.
Badge centered.
Baton resting
at the hip.
I folded into the mural,
knee bent to the bike,
the illusion of motion,
flip phone to my ear—
The picture you took
before the soda shop
swallowed you.
And I remained
behind shaded lenses,
trained on the copper’s boots,
Remembering
The day we sat on the precinct steps
You said you keep your shoes on
until bedtime
in case you’re called to action.
And it made me sad
to think of you
never comfortable
in your own feet.
Evelyn F. Katz is a retired educator who devoted her career to helping students find their creative voices and use those voices as an engine for change. She is Brooklyn-born poet whose work has appeared in Leisure…Dinner with the Muse Vol. III, First Literary Review East, Prospectus: A Literary Offering, NYWC The Journal, BEAT Gen Anthology, Wine Cellar Press,Wild World Magazine, Loud Coffee Press, Dribble Drabble, Muddy Water Poetry Review, Culinary Origami and Common Unity. She is the recipient of the Irwin Shaw Honorary Mention in fiction writing.