|
The 36-Count Panty Poem In the town where I live, I overhear poets Discussing the “panty”—whether or not It belongs in their art; this, since Bill Moore, MULE publisher and sufferer Of “Panty Hyperbole” moved here. Regardless, I really wanted to write a panty poem For the semi-annual crawl, so I mention to Bill, Who says, “No, No, No.” And I say, “Well, I think I’ll write one anyway, and I think I should put a lot of panties in it, and I think I should add you, too” He puts his index finger To his lips, removes it, and says “I hope It won’t be one of those sleazy pieces.” “Bill, it’s not an easy get . . . You’ve gotta make A panty dance; you know, you just can’t throw Panties into a poem like you’d toss panties Off the side of the bed to land on the floor Like an offshore deflated island. And you can’t Hang them up in a row like on some kind Of iambic pentameter clothesline, as in Panty, Panty, Panty, Panty, Panty . . . Because “panty” is trochee . . . besides, What’s the difference? You won’t show, Knowing the crawl might be crawling with panty poets And even one “panty” heard, that would be Too much panty for your disease, where if you see A single panty in the poem, you see a thousand.” One local poet had a lone panty in a MULE poem And pantyhose in a second—and what of pantyhose? Doth that maketh a panty poem? If so, then By my calculations, that poet would have to write One thousand nine-hundred and ninety-eight poems Sans a panty to enter into Bill’s fantasy of a panty-free Zone. Hyperbole’s Disease aside, what does Bill care About panties anyway? Unless he’s, as I suspected, Also affected by a panty fetish like Elvis who had That penchant for white cotton panties, The kind that lacks intact elasticity Around the waist and thighs, glimpsed Between the rising skirts on schoolgirls Somersaulting through recess before their flesh is ready. Of course, there are rumors: Elvis didn’t have sex, Other rumors he had it all the time; Either way, you can bet your white cotton panties Played a part; but later in life, when he got fat, The biographers say he had to pay for sex. Elvis would never have to pay for sex. Fat girls would wait in line to lay him, Waving their jumbo-sized cotton whites Like flags of southern surrender. My mother loved Elvis, But she wouldn’t have had a chance because I never remembered her Ever wearing a pair, only girdles and later pantyhose; yet My sister and I were far from pantyless—having more than four Dozen between us. I was in the third grade When our washing machine broke; We didn’t get another until I was fifteen. My mother wasn’t like June On Leave It To Beaver or on other happy shows with organized families Who fed their kids and stuff like that; We’d go to the laundromat on school nights, Bubbles and panties spinning round and round before my mother Decided it would be better to wash clothes even less. She brought home packages of 3-pack panties, Plastic wrapped, in assorted colors, and we stuffed them panties Into our dresser ‘til the drawers wouldn’t close. Even now, though I bought a washer, I own two dozen panties plus— For the record, I wear mail-order as a matter of course, In the heated panty controversy of a small southwestern town, I vote NO panties.
Nadine Kachur |
||
|
|
||