Even during class, my sister
strummed chords, fingers
caressing frets or stretching
strings bleeding the blues.
Sometimes she’d pick
a country tune, wailing for lost
beers and pickup trucks,
mourning every orphan.
Now her fingers pluck
bibs and diapers
from laundry, her kids
a Greek chorus of woes
and triumphs. The guitar resonates
during birthdays
or under a beer tent.
My brother-in-law puzzles
at her frustrations. After beers
one night, he confessed
she hums in her sleep,
and taps her finger.
It’s weird, he tells me: sometimes
her hand finds a rhythm, as if
stroking our last dog’s head.
John Cullen graduated from SUNY Geneseo and worked in the entertainment business booking rock bands, a clown troupe, and an R-rated magician. Currently he teaches at Ferris State University and has had work published in American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, Harpur Palate, North Dakota Quarterly and other journals. His chapbook, TOWN CRAZY, is available from Slipstream Press.
