When Dinahshore Roamed
Author: Bill Roberts
Her delicate bones
Are barely settled,
But once she roamed
This diminished planet,
Eating its veggies
And fruits and nuts
And the occasional cheeseburger,
Singing its praises
To the sky,
From peak to peak,
Shore to shore,
This talented
And now extinct Dinahshore,
So perfect God made only one.
It’s been tough going
Since you left, Dinalshore,
But, if it pleases you,
I’m still seeing the U.S.A.
In my Chevrolet….
Though it leaks oil badly.
(Published in the Summer 2001 issue, Issue No. 15, Vol. 7, No. 1, of Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century)
Note: Dinah. Was there anyone finah? I’ve just come back from Palm Desert where I studied an old photo on the wall of a 5-star hotel, a picture of Dinah Shore in her golf finery, swinging a driver much like she could swing onstage. What a beauty. And what a great representative of this great country of ours – scolding us to see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet. Had one once. It didn’t get me very far before it started leaking oil, chugged a death rattle, and stopped in the middle of M Street in D.C., zillions of motorists all about me screaming to get the hell out of their way – they still had plenty to see in the U.S. of A.
