Kitchen Secrets

artwork: ralph murre

Kitchen Secrets

by Julie C. Eger

The first time I heard Elvis

I was five-years-old.

Papa was gone

and I was peeking

around the corner

while Mama was

in the kitchen

with the radio on.

Come supper time

I danced to the table

with swaying hips

and bendy knees.

I used my spoon

as a microphone.

Papa gave me the look

and Mama said,

“That’s enough child.”

And I said, “No,

that’s alright now Mama,

That’s alright by me.”

~ first published on Poetry Dispatch

Rendezvous

artwork: ralph murre

Rendezvous

by Julie C. Eger

My poem strolls in at midnight

like Humphrey Bogart,

tosses his coat and hat on my bed.

I pull back the curtain,

glance out at the lighted drive.

He’s backed in – front end

aimed at the highway.

His plan – a quick get-away.

But for now I lie

down beside him,

and because I am

a methodical woman

and alluring –

I undress him slowly,

one layer at a time

to reveal his hidden intent

and he stays,

this time better than the last –

His tie is on the floor now.

He’s gone – down the highway

I suppose

I am satisfied

he came at all

~ first appeared on Poetry Dispatch

Things My Grandmother Told Me

digital art: ralph murre

Things My Grandmother Told Me

by Julie C. Eger

Wash the walls with hot soapy water but rinse with cool and clear.
Don’t rub so hard the paint comes off or the paper peels up.
Wear a hat when you’re out in the sun.
Don’t look directly into the sun
or you’ll burn your corneas and go blind.
Add this much salt to the soup.
Turn away when a man looks at you.
If he bothers you, kick him in the knee.
If he keeps bothering you, kick higher.
Mind your manners at school, especially Sunday school.
Sing your song loud even if you’re off key.
Don’t mind the ones who are always on key,
they don’t know other things.
Pull weeds, not carrots.
This is the way to use a hoe.
This is the way to use a rake.
This is the way to stack wood.
This is the way to use a broom.
This is the way to carry bricks.
This is the way to wash a dish.
This is the way to a fold a towel.
This is the way to fold fitted sheets.
This is the way to make a bed.
This is the way to carry buckets of water.
This is the way to flip a pancake.
This is the way to make beef stew.
This is the way to open a jar.
This is the way to pin your blouse
in the middle where it gaps.
This is the way to pull back your hair
when you are working hard.
This is the way to pull back your hair
when you are working hard to attract a man.
This is the way a whore wears her hair.
This is the way a whore makes a bed.
This is the way to wear your hair
when you want to keep a man.
This is the way to mark your calendar.
This is the rhythm to follow when you don’t want a baby.
This is the rhythm to follow when you want a baby to come.
This is the way to make your bed,
especially when you are expected to lie in it.

And if I don’t want to lie in it?

Then you haven’t been listening.
We all have to lie in it.

~ first appeared on Poetry Dispatch

Grampa Joe's Barn

Grampa Joe’s Barn
by Julie C. Eger

Grampa Joe had
a salt and pepper moustache
green dickey pants
stuck his tongue out behind your back
drank his coffee from a saucer
ate his peas with a knife

lined his oil-stained workbench
with jars full of gasoline
and thick paint in old coffee cans
hung the walls
with hammer heads, bucksaws,
and rakes that grinned toothless smiles,
pitchforks that could not pitch a tune
parked an electric grinder atop
a Cities Service welder that patiently
rusted in a corner
of the barn.

The pine beam split during the last storm
and the second floor landed on top
of the 31 Chevy Coupe, straw sprinkled down
on the bones of the coon
a long time dead now.
Tools rusted in buckets
of nails that would never hold anything
together again.

He saw the double doors twisted open,
the sag in the tin roof
as he stood peering out
chained to his oxygen tank
by the hoses he would drag
from room to room
watching through the windows
as the old barn struggled to hang on.

~ first published in Free Verse

WITHOUT PRIESTS OR ROBES

artwork: ralph murre

Without Priests or Robes
by Julie C. Eger

I remember a time when
Mama moved the furniture
to give us more room
as Dick Rodgers, Fritz Willfarht
and the rest of the players
would come in on WLUK
TV Station out of Green Bay
at 10:00 on Sunday mornings
while other kids were sitting in cars,
mothers slicking back hair with spit,
straightening collars, and scolding them
to stand up straight as they walked to their pews.
Mama cranked the volume on the TV
and with hands together, chins up,
shoulders locked, right foot back,
back together back, counting
one-uh-two, one-uh-two,
we would polka all our cares away
and before Tuba Dan
put down his bouncing tuba,
without priests or robes,
without altars or smoke,
all my sins were forgiven.

~ previously published at Your Daily Poem