I am taking a poetry class and have to write a sonnet. So I've been trolling through old efforts and found this one as I listen to Rachelle van Zanten on the Coldsnap Livestream. It seemed fitting for these COVID times. I shifted it into a prose poem format, instead of the short lines that I first wrote (right after seeing Lyle in concert a few years ago). Anyone know all the songs in here? How about which details I stole from someone else's husband? I'm still not good. . .
I am the woman Lyle Lovett sings about
by Heather Ramsay
You know the tune. She wasn’t good, but she had good intentions.
It’s true. I forget to put the timer on the soft-boiled eggs. I buy the medium roast coffee beans when you prefer dark and talk to the neighbours about the broken laundry machine that you keep saying you’re going to fix. I might have put your bike wrench back in the wrong place and took that expensive bottle of Pinot Noir that you bought at the winery in Oregon to book club that night.
I was late and you seemed happy with your beer and smokies.
It’s hard to be a woman in a country song. First you’re the siren then he’s wilder than you. One minute you’re on a rainbow and the next, he’s sniffing your underwear. Yes, I did mention your kidney stones at the boss’s party but that other woman talked about her husband’s haemorrhoids first. Remember the pain you were in when you woke me up and asked me to take you to the hospital? Those other wives were so sympathetic.
But when I could only get one ticket to that really big show. You didn’t want to go, right?
Anyway, I’m not a wife so I must be a lady.
At least I am not a train.
Have you ever tried to compete with a train?
A fast train?
A dewey-eyed darlin, darlin?
They never do anything wrong.
Photo from Heritage Park in Calgary.
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