weekend lines:Sunday, August 16

Toe prints in August

(1977)

Carvings stretched like pennies

Imbedded in their walks,

Wooded with splintered scents;

Town’s people dared to gawk

As I read ancient names—

I’d swivel my head back

Around again to see;

Street names last history

shuffled feet toe—I nursed

it there to know its line;

We left Mantorville when

Those planks shattered the night

And sun repressed our time—

Mom and I passed Mayo;

Ten minutes out of town

The radio got quiet;

A man delivered news—

He told us Elvis died

Then silence followed us;

Eighty miles the wheat fields

Waved singing “I’m all shook up”

And I cried to mute them;

I felt my toe again—

To ease me from my pain

My foot toed the dash;

I was no Elvis fan—

Of his famous lines to see

On Memphis’s gracious lands;

“My mama always told me…”

He said in a song once—

Knowing as mothers can be;

His name was trod to stain peels

In Mantorville’s street lights glean

Then they’d bow dolefully;

The “king” was dead and my

Toe would always know the

Pain etched my memory.