LISA PARKS

Enjoying the Scenery

She insisted that we live in Arkansas
because there “wouldn’t be any traffic”
and we could buy tomatoes off the street.
Two months later, we were driving
down a stretch of highway
that dipped and turned
through endless charades of hills
splotched with trees that looked, to me,
as if they had Scoliosis.
I felt like I was going to be sick.
My wife told me to enjoy the fresh air
and scenery.
At that very moment, I turned my head
to the left and saw a man in his underwear
watering the artificial flowers
he had plunged in a toilet
that was proudly perched in his front yard.
Yes, honey,
New Yorkers would kill to have
a view like this.

Holy Orders
by Gary Simmons