Janet McCann

EXPLANATION OF SORTS

so old my poems
have grown thin. Maybe
because I scrawl them
on skinny pads
charities send me
that i don’t want.
i want my poems to be
sweet and lazy, old
round southern ladies
with iced tea. But no,
they are scrawny and
angular and want to
argue politics and the
unfairness of it all.
the writing pads are
for to do lists, and the
bottom line says, “give
today!” my poems are
unhappy, they want
wordiness, adjectives.
they want to have
something to give today.

MY BAD DOG

Marple, catahoula, opens
my laundry hamper, takes
all my dirty clothes
and piles them up
then gets ready for
sleep. She turns around
in them until she is
part of the pile,
then drifts off. I
don’t discourage her
because I like to see
her browny white nose
among the towels and
jeans, and to know that
there is something that thinks
even at my age, 83
I smell just great.

Janet McCann, an ancient crone poet who taught at Texas A&M University for 47 years.