By Jane Cooper Hong
We wore mud moccasins that day
Stuck on the gumbo road
Doughy and viscous from the rain
The same rain that blackened the night
Adding to your beer-fed blindness
The same rain that helped you slur onto a farm road
Instead of into a wayside rest
Taking us into the waiting, wet gumbo
Doughy and viscous from the rain
Clinging to the tires
Pulling them deeper with every attempt to roll forward
Reverse our only direction
Stuck on the gumbo road
Beer bottles empty, Ford bench seats the only beds
We awakened to Red River Valley sunshine
Raising steam from the slick, black dirt
We pushed, we pulled
Reverse our only direction
Stuck on the gumbo road
As the mud caked thicker and thicker on our shoes
I welcomed bare feet
But you and mom resisted
Till the sheer weight and viscosity of the gumbo
Sucked the shoes from your feet and Mom’s
Leaving you in your socks
Which grew longer and heavier by the minute
Till they, too, succumbed to the pull
And you and Mom joined me
Barefoot
Stuck on the gumbo road
We wore mud moccasins that day
Velvet soft, oily black mud, clinging to our feet
As we pushed and pulled
Inching the car backward
Stuck on the gumbo road
Tires spinning, mud pinwheeling
Spattering the pushers, spraying the pullers
Leaving us laughing
At our appearance
At our predicament
At our mud moccasins
As we remained
Stuck on the gumbo road
Covered in mud, warmed by sunshine
Weaned of beer by the suction of mud and unplanned exertion
You laughed and sang
And reminded me of Dad Gone By
Reversing direction
Stuck on the gumbo road
That stretched past row after row after row of sugar beets
Like a drawing exercise in perspective
Reaching to a vanishing point
Where a tractor appeared
Growing in proportion to the rows in the fields
As it chugged closer
Finally reaching us there
Stuck on the gumbo road
The farmer, terse with words but quick with a hitch
Achieved in minutes what we’d labored at for hours
Wearing our mud moccasins
Stuck on the gumbo road
While we missed the wedding we’d been driving to
The farmer’s wife served cool water and blood sausage sandwiches
Tasty food to us, her mud-covered guests
Because we’d eaten nothing for a night and a day
Stuck on the gumbo road
Beautiful people, dressed in wedding day finest
Greeted us as we reached your brother’s home
Black mud caked on every inch of your powder blue car
Coating our skin, hair and clothing
From the night and day we’d spent
Stuck on the gumbo road
Water removed the mud
Making us fit for the company of the fancy guests
Until the beer was served
Like dark rain
Leaving reverse our only direction
Stuck on the gumbo road
# # #
Comments