My Moses

Big Jack and his walking stick
live on the ridge. Kokopelli's
orphan kids dance for him,
bobcat urine's in the weeds,
the shotgun barrel's up his sleeve,
a Persian coin is on the wind.
Th e Chinese Mountains smell the moon
and arch their backs. I tell him, Jack,
sometimes I wish I was living in
canvas France, the old west,
a picture book, the Sea
of Tranquility, or even in
the den near the hot spring.
He says, kid, to hell with

phantom limbs; spring is a verb,
a wish is a wash, a walking stick
is a gottdam wing.

—Wendy Videlock
(originally published in Poetry)

The Various Ways Oh My Can Be Said:

With dread,
with a head
full of something else

that can't be said,
with a sigh,
over mai
tais, at a slice

of oversized
pumpkin pie,
on noticing

an open fly,
with a grin,
when contemplating
not enough,

or everythang,
with a pretty
southern twang,
outside, inside,

in feigned surprise,

while looking into
starry eyes,
on a creaky
ladder rung,
on the slips

of Freudians,
on the tips
of foreign tongues,

and somehow

somewhere

oh my


oh my

can fill the air

when underneath,

and barely there.

—Wendy Videlock
(originally published in NPR)