Joy McDowell




Man on the Street

Grandma said she remembered a time 
when no adult man was ever seen 
walking around the streets of her town 

during daylight on a weekday 
unless he was a preacher in a black suit
or a milkman in a white uniform,

maybe a garbage man rattling your trash. 
Men worked, Grandma claimed. None 
of this disability and welfare money

now handed out to lazy bums 
without ambition. We had shame, 
she said. You didn’t put a black mark 

on your family name, you know, 
embarrass your mother by being 
an aimless fool. Grandma looked 

the lot of us over, checking to be 
sure we all got the message.
Slackers were never welcome

in our family. Owen shifted
off his crippled leg, but we 
all knew he was the smartest 

grandkid and could already
do algebra in second grade.

Bad Moon Rising

Creedence Clearwater circles the spindle,
repeats, marking forever this 1972 moment

in a small house with my husband’s
logger buddies, people I cannot relate to, 

Sleep. My body craves sleep.
I have outgrown my party creature. 

I want to go home and slip into my soft clean bed. 
The drinkers need a crowd to keep the binge going.

A woman barfs in the yard. Lit men leer. 
This alcohol-fueled life is why I escaped 

my small logging town, why I attended
college, imagined a better life. I’m no fun. 

Oddball at twenty-five.
I dream of paying the sitter,

then kneeling beside my child’s bed.
Life holds surprises. It’s over quickly. 

My son is dead and from an unlit window 
I watch the moon rising after midnight. 

I recall the soft silky touch, the salty 
and sweet aroma of my sleeping son’s hair.