Cody Walker

A Mad Gardener’s Quartet

He thought he saw a G.I. Joe
     With Kung-Fu plastic Grip:
He looked again, and found it was
     A lone, bedraggled Pip.
“I’ll fast alert Miss Havisham— 
     Or Gladys!” (he did quip).

He thought he saw his High School Coach
    With twenty shit-faced drunks:
He looked again, and found it was
     Max Roach, in bathing trunks.
“I saw that cat in ’62,
     At Coltrane’s place, or Monk’s.”

He thought he saw a Cordless Phone
     That wouldn’t fully charge:
He looked again, and found it was
     The funkster El DeBarge.
“I’m not sure funkster’s on the mark;
     A crooner, by and large.”

He thought he saw a Lot of Nothing
     Vanish in a Hole:
He looked again, and found it was—
     God’s honest truth—his Soul.
“It turns up at the oddest times;
     It’s nothing I control.”

Cody Walker is the author of three poetry collections, all from the Waywiser Press. His work appears in The New York Times Magazine, The Yale Review, Poetry Northwest, and The Best American Poetry. He lives in Michigan and directs the Bear River Writers’ Conference.