Barbara Crooker: Car Hop
I made seventy-five cents an hour, plus tips. All those shiny quarters. Some went down the throat of the jukebox—96 Tears, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Reach Out / I’ll Be There.
Barbara Crooker: Pentimento
In the lost rooms of my childhood,
cinnamon and nutmeg float in the air
Barbara Crooker: Diorama
Mother stands by the stove, waiting
to serve. Father has tamped down
his anger for the night.
Barbara Crooker: On Teaching Poetry Classes in My Old Elementary School in Honor of Its 100th Anniversary
Yes, I know my mother isn’t there, as I walk up and down Main Street;
she’s moved to a different zip code, the one with no returns.
Barbara Crooker: Happiness
This is all there is: the red cherries, the green leaves,
sky like a pale silk dress, and the rise and fall
of the sweet breeze.
Barbara Crooker: In the Middle
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Barbara Crooker: Nearing Menopause, I Run Into Elvis At Shoprite,
The bass
line thumps and grinds, the honky tonk piano moves like an ivory
river, full of swampy delta blues.
Barbara Crooker: Star of Wonder, Star of Light
It’s Christmas, the year before the accident, when the earth
still seemed fixed. My husband and children are hanging
lights on the big pine tree
Barbara Crooker: Poem For My Birthday
Send me a heart of gratitude for this long afternoon
of goldenrod light falling across my typewriter
and a sky so blue I want to bite it like an apple.
Barbara Crooker: Sustenance
It’s hard to remember we swim in an ocean
of great love, so easy to fall into bickering
like little birds at the feeder
