Poetry/ Maureen Owen

The Stations of Her Cross     her way of the cross   
Via Dolorosa     
          her given name       Our Lady of Sorrows

1st      Riding her pony
          bareback to a
          one room schoolhouse

2nd    Divorced she wasn’t
         allowed into heaven

3rd    Insisting she be driven to
         emergency at midnight 
         stomach attacks
         feeling better even
         as we check in

4th    Reciting poems she’d
         learned in high school
         giving me intro to poesis
         lyric to my ear

5th      Us lugging oxygen cannisters
        lassos of tubing
        on train trips between
        Denver and Truckee

6th    Our road trips navigating
         dusty hot summers 
         makeshift roadside stands
         peaches melons avocados
         crawling the Grapevine
         up California’s belly

7th    Falling into the donut hole
         hit with the true cost
         of Eliquis

8th     Going with her beloved dad
         on farm tax inspector visits
         (he kept the ledgers for the county)
         inviting the farmers into his car
         he would simply let them
         disclose what they felt fair

9th    At Park Burger with Barbara
         and I where she raged against
         the metal chairs    the light

10th  depression drought dust storms
        wrapping in a wet sheet to breathe
        to sleep   freeing the horses    the
        livestock    to find their own water

11th  Dressing for church
        putting on lipstick at the dresser’s
        oval mirror farm bedroom

12th  Being able to name
        every farmer in
        every barn on
        the way to town
        who’d hung himself
        during the Great Depression

13th  Dancing in a twirling
        full flower skirt

         Vallejo   Stockton  Bay Meadows   Sacramento

 

MAUREEN OWEN, former editor and chief of Telephone Magazine and Telephone Books, is the author of Erosion’s Pull (Coffee House Press); a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Balcones Poetry Prize; American Rush: Selected Poems, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize; and AE (Amelia Earhart), a recipient of the prestigious Before Columbus American Book Award. Her newest title is Edges of Water (Chax Press). Recent work has appeared in Hurricane Review, Exacting Clam, Posit, Brooklyn Rail, Hanging Loose, Walkers in the City, and The Denver Quarterly. She has taught at Naropa University, onsite and online. 

 

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Owen.php

http://barbarahenning.com/category/maureenowen/ for Poets on the Road Tour with Barbara Henning.