Don Quixote’s sidekick comes into his own in this unpredictable poem from Justin Hamm.
—
Goodbye, Sancho Panza
I meet
a Slim Jim munching
Sancho Panza
goateed now
all leathered out
and in close contact
with his inner beast
Five hundred years
after the death
of his beloved mule
he rides a Kawasaki
wants to know if I will
sally forth with him
through Missouri
as his loyal
dimwit squire
There’s this broad
he’s s’pposed to meet
near the riverside in Cape
he explains
So I pull out my blues harp
and toot a few notes
while I think of the baby
my sweet scented daughter
whose pudgy upturned nose
matches my own
A newborn’s a fragile thing
a soft cooing heap
of possibly maybe
long before it hardens
into something permanent
like a soul
and for the first three weeks
I refused to use her name
Earlier tonight I drank
to overcoming these fears
to Jesus and science
and green bean casserole
but Sancho is as sober
as an ice cube
as serious as any
grain of sand
and despite the longing
I’m forced to decline
Missouri is veined with
deep winding caverns
so many of her secrets
tightly concealed
and anyway I’m
too old and civilized
for the sort of digging
it would take
to learn anything good
***
Editor’s Note: Justin Hamm has published with us before. Read his “In Case You Were Wondering” and “Poem for Saturday.”
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