American Joan & Arjuna

for Linda & Billy

Throttling through the flower bed hunched over
and pink as lox, Uncle Billy beheaded
Aunt Linda’s lilies with his riding mower
and glanced back at the woman he had wedded.
Stole of smoke encircling her shoulders
she threw aside her empty Pall Mall pack
startling the snoozing setters at her slippers
when as she leapt, the rocking chair banged back.
O, this meant war. As through the blooms he veered
she shed her bathrobe for a suit of armor

gilded with fleurs-de-lys. A god appeared
riding beside him, trying to alarm her
with a conch shell’s bellow. Such was life
between the sunburned farmer and his wife.