Things Impossible to Swallow • poems by Pamela Garvey • number 24 in the 2River Chapbook Series • 2River

At Your Request

Smashing that wheezing eight-track didn't help.
Neither did those voice lessons or the trips
to Nashville, looking for the Carters' home,
nights at the Grand Ole Opry. You act so
old because you are. No color under
this cowboy hat. And what should I write for
a man who doesn't know, who keeps searching
for song?
            I’m sick of your stories: children
hiding their father's gun before he got
too drunk; brothers, ten and twelve, working stores,
anything for cash to buy bread, shoes and
cigarettes. But what's missing in that story?
What albatross screeches and deafens you?