A Mule and A Pair

Papa used to sing
about a good cigar.

He could enunciate
serendipity
always thinking
it meant a mule's contemplations
while chewing fresh oats.

The man could trade a dry cow
for an old Model T
and sell the parts for fifty dollars
in a single day.

He asked for banana pudding one morning,
     but forgot;
went across Red River with a buddy
getting drunk on his first shot
of Oklahoma firewater.

Brilla was calm at 2 am,
November 18, 1931
when he tumbled through
the back door
     sneaky-like.

"You asked for it. Now
you eat every bite."

Papa kept to the Texas side
of the river after that.

Copyright © 2002 by Cynthia Wright