Feb. 28, 2006

SHORT BUS POEM

Go through the world

with your mouth wide open

tasting in the air.

See the redbird in the tree.

Know the seasons.

Then one day, somebody will say

Don’t be alone:

I hear that wind too,

I see that red bird as well,

I also eat the dirt.

bus haiku

The spring is coming.

That is where I will bury

all this sad treasure.

OATMEAL

This oatmeal is perfect

like summer is perfect

when it rains

and we would climb on the roof

young

and watch the storms come in over the golf course—

            the only geography we had in Iowa—weather.

It is sweet and thick

            this oatmeal

and I think about the girls

we’d call to go bike riding

hoping they’d touch

our coward hands

afraid to do anything

            constantly being nice

when they didn’t want nice boys

            but action men

and they’d sit on the roof waiting for us

to be brave.

I’ll need to floss to get this unstuck from my mouth

            this oatmeal

and I remember when I flossed too much

getting ready for a date

when I thought I might have my first kiss

and I over flossed and

I looked like a boxer when I smiled

            a bloody jack o’lantern smile.

And the kiss didn’t happen

and I didn’t learn courage

and I see these spineless invincible

and want to slap them up the head

and say,

            Stop it.

            Don’t be a washcloth.

            Hold her hand if it is the right thing to do.

            Don’t ask permission to kiss—if you don’t know, wait till you do,

            but by God, never ask permission—it is like raining on fireworks—

                        so knock that stuff out.

And I eat my oatmeal and need to floss out what’s left.

            I use my tongue to find the last sweetness.

This perfect bowl of oatmeal.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF MATT FOSS AS TOLD BY MATT FOSS:  The Great Cattle Drive of Christmas Eve when I was Ten Years Old.

Before a court of law, I would have to say that it was during a Christmas break in one of my high school years.  I did one exciting thing involving one steel gate and I drank black coffee in the cold cab of my father’s truck when we were done.  The true story—I am ten years old, riding my horse, Bug, next to my father on, Doc, a few hours after midnight mass and the end of a blizzard that shut down our town, with the smell of Christmas in my nose and baby Jesus in my heart.

            Dad comes down to my room to wake me up.  I still had my clothes on from church.  He shakes me awake, assures me we’ll be back in time for Santa and I ask where we are going. 

            “It’s too cold.  We need to get to Hospers and help the cattle.  They’re too exposed in the yard.”  He is talking in short sentences.  People talk in short sentences to people they trust.  “We need to get them inside—someplace.  Any ideas?”

            “The bus barn is empty.”

            “Okay.  Get up. The roads are closed.  I put Bug’s saddle on him.”

            “Can I wear your chaps?”

            “Yeah.  You can wear my chaps.”  Another short sentence.  I’m in good.

            We bust through drifts and race over the exposed parts of old corn stubble.  We can see a few lights from Hospers now the snow has stopped.  There are no plows on the old highway.  We have Christmas to ourselves.  We’re the type of guys—right now—riding our horse across the Floyd River Valley—that God would send angels to meet and announce the birth of a baby.  We’re the perfect guys for that sort of thing—right now—in the cold, riding to go save some cattle and put them in a bus barn.

            We can hear them calling as we hit the outskirts of town.  My father reaches down to brush the frost and ice from Doc’s nose, and I do the same for Bug.  I whisper in his ear—steaming and sweet with sweat—“Almost there, chief.  Almost there, Bug.”  I look down to my legs, covered with my dad’s old rodeo clothes.  The damn things are cinched up around my chest and I feel perfect.

            “We’ll take them down Main, pass the statue, and veer left into the bus barn half a mile down.”  He’s pointing to me as the horses turn into the yards.  He’s big, my dad, and he has an old black Stetson four-by that has a hole in the front of the crown.  He has on an old, green quilted down coat and a yard of warm fleece cloth that has lain in our basement for ever wrapped around his neck and midsection to keep warm.  I am wearing his chaps and most of my mom’s long underwear.  I’m so damn perfect.

            “Stay by the statue and push them slow to the North side of the street.”

            “Okay.”

            Dad rides off to open the gate.  The old dough boy atop the white, plaster statue camped in the middle of Hospers’ main street is unflinching, not used to being looked on at this hour.  St. Anthony’s ring’s its bells—two o’clock—these angels could be coming any minute.  Then I hear the cattle, and there is my dad.

            My dad is riding through the steamy fox fire coming off the cold cattle warming up—his yelps and yahs blending in with their mewlings and snortings—so pure and better than any opera—full of snot and pride and relief to be moving and hope of something better—and my dad is clicking out his cowboy Figaro and I join into the music.  My voice become deeper and I’m moving the cattle.

            “Hum, babe, come on…come on cow…hep, yah.  Hep, yah.  Hum, babe, hep.  Hep.  Hep.”  Bug shoulders a big steer that gets to close to a mail box.  “Hep, Bug—good boy.  Hep.”  I’m in the cloud of cattle now and the air is sweeter and warmer and my insides change up and aren’t on edge anymore. 

            “Ride up and open the barn.”  I nod and give Bug the click and we’re off—racing past the houses of girls I know from school and I hope, I hope to God that they are somehow looking at me now, racing with the brim of my hat pressed back against the top of my head, just like those pictures of kids on the Pony Express.  I’m clicking and whispering to Bug to keep going and I see the orange light of the barn and we’re there and I rope the lever handle—I have a rope now—and I rope the door and Bug sets back and pulls, and just as the door creaks open and the warm air of the inside explodes out into Christmas—the cattle rush in and we’re closing the door on them and it is done.  They’re safe.  They’re warm and it is Christmas.

            “Good Job.”  My Dad takes off his glove to shake my hand.

            “Thanks.  You too.”

            “Let’s get home.  It’s Christmas.”

            I nod.  He nudges Doc, and Bug follows, and we ride through the night, clear and blue, back home.