For the Woman Who Went Into Labor

At An Emmylou Harris Concert

The old guy gives away

His poem pamphlets

And he’ll swear the best

Targets are those

Paid to be kind

Nurses and doctors

And as for civilians

Those with a hippie

Or artistic look

About them and

Waiters and waitresses

Hoping to jack up the tip

His pitch is, I don’t sell

These because most

Of the time I can’t

Give them away

But once on a boardwalk

After chatting

A pretty ASPCA worker

Who’s blonde and fishing

For members calls his bluff

She forces a fiver into his mitt

Won’t even take it back

As a donation for critters

He doesn’t know how to act

She wants to be the first

And by Jove, it’s just like that

Later he wonders if she

Ever became a song

Published on April 17th, 2023