Richard Ballon

Washington is Too Squat a State

Washington is too squat a state.
I need something lean like
Delaware, or that flamboyant
curl of Cape Cod or that
scorpion tail of the Florida keys.
 
We always had to puzzle them
together, and once I tried
to stuff Texas into the torso
of New England.
That same year we had a drought.
That same year, Sky Lab fell.
 
So I stopped messing with geography
and started messing with Jeffrey
who had a birth mark
what seemed the size of Cuba
on his left cheek,
you know the one I mean.
 
To navigate the waters
I would whisper words like Panama
in his left ear
as we journeyed on.
 
Been moored some time now,
waiting for a man with an arm
like the handle of Florida
to come round like a dike,
you know the kind I mean,
and map out a future
and silence all uncertainty.

Richard Ballon lives in the Pioneer Valley where he nests in a valley surrounded by mountains. ("They are actually hills, but we call them mountains out of sense of respect for their age.") They slumber on the horizon, all elbows and knees. At night they wash in the Connecticut River.

He has had poetry appear in The Haight Ashbury Review, Social Anarchism, Lilliput Review, The Saint Anthony Messenger, Onionhead, Changing Men and Anything that Moves.

Want to see what reviews look like? Click here
Like this poem? Send this link to a friend