The Shine Journal
Exceptional Flash, Poetry, Art and Photography!
Two from Laura Lehew
Bronco Billy
Billy’s mom makes dinners—
with real meat and potatoes.
Never casseroles. Always dessert.
She is the best.
Petty Officer Bill believes his superiors,
they say he’ll be safe when The Bomb goes off.
He’s a bona fide veteran of the war.
The government is the best.
Bill met a peach of a girl,
name of Lois,
whom he marries.
She cooks and cleans, she’s the best.
William believes in his company.
They train him, transfer him,
lay him off.
He’s best without Corporate America.
Bill gets cancer.
He believes the government
will care for him but
the Veterans Administration,
VA, for short, can’t
or won’t act quickly.
He’s in the Kaiser’s care.
They say, those Kaiser docs,
they’ll fix him up,
good as new.
After radiation and
during chemo,
Billy’s hearing gets buzzed,
his eyes get fried,
he gets a walker, a shiny
red one with a basket.
Billy gets surgery to remove
his left eye, eyelid, eye lashes—
has a stroke during the procedure,
and Billy stops making sense—
Lois drives him, day after day,
to treatments, traditional and alternative,
takes him for walkies, bathes him,
feeds him Vanilla Bean ice cream.
Where others have failed the tests of time,
Billy knows, even now,
beyond all doubt, that
Lois, his wife, is the best.
She is the sunlight
on a budding hibiscus,
the single perfect rose,
nestled among the stinkweeds.
Goddaughter
This evening you are
awash in a platinum moonlight.
Indigo eyes so close to the leap.
Yesterday I rocked you in my arms,
and I was cooing.
Last night I paid you a dollar for each book you read,
and you read a lot.
This morning you learned how to drive,
and I held my breath.
This afternoon I threw you an 18th birthday and graduation party,
for you, kindest of hearts, deserve the best.
I wish for you the world,
so that you will always have a choice.
I wish to be your shield,
keeping all things evil at bay.
I wish for you safe passage,
on this, your most auspicious journey.
I wish for you true love,
for which there is no shield.
My Bio: Laura LeHew is an award winning poet whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Alehouse Press, Arabesques Review (Contemporary Women Writers edition), Battered Suitcase, Her Mark Calendar 07 & 09, HeartLodge, Pank, PMS, and Untamed Ink. Her chapbook Beauty is due out in May 09 from Altered Crow Press. Laura received her MFA in writing from the California College of The Arts, a writing residency from Soapstone, interned for CALYX Journal and has been nominated for a Pushcart. In her spare time she is busy spinning up Uttered Chaos Press www.utteredchaos.org.
Motivation:
Bronco Billy=health care
Goddaughter=my niece at a milestone
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