By Rodd Whelpley

South Loop

Thankfully, this was years ago

our family in a receiving line

at a restaurant on Harrison or Wabash,

my wife first, me, and our son –

maybe 10 – shaking hands

with our first set of grooms, 

thanking them for including our kid 

on the invitation, apologizing 

for making this political, but he needs 

to see this. 

                    We all need to see this. 

Then, me at once hugging both the husbands,

the three of us gazing over shoulders, wondering 

at how hard it is to steal home, to have 

a Jackie Robinson of marriages, hoping

one day, we can criticize the shitty tuxes, 

the way too many bridesmaids, take odds 

on just how long these kids will last, be catty, 

drunk, and hell-bound joyous at these things –   

just the way we used to.

Although Zero Structures in Our Hometown are Listed as Historic Places

There lived the deities,           the populace of childhood:

                                                Coach. Teacher. The Senior quarterback 

                                                we didn’t know would never make

                                                Ohio State. Bobby Burton’s guide dog

                                                plucking dimes and nickels 

                                                from the floor of his master’s bookshop.

And the household gods         Grandma. And the babysitter, Mrs. Druppel,

                                                who blushed, when, we, tired before our naps,

                                                called her grandma too – 

Who we thought of as             our unwitting saviors those nights

                                                when mom’s, then dad’s, voices,

                                                whet as kitchen steak knives, 

                                                much too loudly echoed words distorted 

through the old-house heat vents

Twins alone                            in separate rooms, wondering

                                                what we did to make things

                                                go so wrong.

 
– inspired by Lannie Stabile’s poem “Callisto”

Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. His poems have appeared in numerous journals. His chapbooks include Catch as Kitsch Can (2018), The Last Bridge is Home (2021) and Whoever Said Love (coming in 2022). Find him at www.RoddWhelpley.com.