March 2018
I am a retired journalist who lives in the middle of the Arizona desert with no neighbors for miles and only the range cows and wildlife for company. The nearest grocery store is twenty miles away. The peace and serenity gives me inspiration to write accessible narrative poems about my true experiences. I sell my chapbooks in the local convenience store and café to winter visitors from all over the country who don’t normally read poetry. I have published in Literary Mama, Orange Room Review and Your Daily Poem. My chapbook, My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014) is available at: http://www.lulu.com/shop/sharon-waller-knutson/my-grandmother-smokes-chesterfields/paperback/product-21818139.html
Meeting a M*A*S*H Hero at a Laundromat
in Southeastern Idaho in the Nineteen Eighties
As soon as I walk in the door
with my basket full of dirty laundry,
the Laundromat owner giddily tells me
she is washing clothes for Hawkeye,
Trapper or Captain B.J. Hunnicutt.
She’s certain it isn’t Colonel Potter.
I ask her to describe him. He’s the drop
dead gorgeous surgeon with dreamy
eyes who wears Army fatigues. That doesn’t
help. He said his wife and daughter
were at the motel. He’ll pick up the clothes
on their way to Yellowstone Park.
While she sniffs his clean Calvin Klein
briefs like a police tracking dog
and then folds them in perfect squares,
I watch the small, medium and large jeans
dancing in the dryer, but they offer
no clue to the famous family.
Across the street in my used bookstore,
I rummage through old movie magazines
until I find a picture of Hawkeye, Potter
and Captain Hunnicutt in greenery
and Hot Lips Houlihan blooming
like a yellow daffodil among the weeds.
Laundromat Lady points to Hunnicutt
just as a Mercedes, sleek as a black panther,
pulls in front with California plates.
I pull my steaming sheets out of the dryer
and pretend to fold them as he walks in,
wearing dark sunglasses, head down,
hands in jean pockets, but I recognize
the birdlike mustache, the curls falling
out of the baseball cap like rose petals.
Are you Mike Farrell from M*A*S*H?” she asks
and when he nods, giggling like a groupie,
she says: It’s an honor to do your laundry.
I hide under the sheets, too star struck to speak.
As he exits, I look outside hoping the car
windows are rolled down and I can get a glimpse
of his wife and teenage daughter
as the car speeds towards the highway,
but they are invisible behind tinted glass.
I go home and watch a re-run of M*A*S*H
Then I put on a 45 RPM on the turntable
and listen to Shelley Fabares sing:
Johnny Angel, how I love him
He's got something that I can't resist
But he doesn't even know that I exist.
I wonder if she knows another woman
was under the sheets
with her husband in the Laundromat.
Meeting a M*A*S*H Hero at a Laundromat
in Southeastern Idaho in the Nineteen Eighties
As soon as I walk in the door
with my basket full of dirty laundry,
the Laundromat owner giddily tells me
she is washing clothes for Hawkeye,
Trapper or Captain B.J. Hunnicutt.
She’s certain it isn’t Colonel Potter.
I ask her to describe him. He’s the drop
dead gorgeous surgeon with dreamy
eyes who wears Army fatigues. That doesn’t
help. He said his wife and daughter
were at the motel. He’ll pick up the clothes
on their way to Yellowstone Park.
While she sniffs his clean Calvin Klein
briefs like a police tracking dog
and then folds them in perfect squares,
I watch the small, medium and large jeans
dancing in the dryer, but they offer
no clue to the famous family.
Across the street in my used bookstore,
I rummage through old movie magazines
until I find a picture of Hawkeye, Potter
and Captain Hunnicutt in greenery
and Hot Lips Houlihan blooming
like a yellow daffodil among the weeds.
Laundromat Lady points to Hunnicutt
just as a Mercedes, sleek as a black panther,
pulls in front with California plates.
I pull my steaming sheets out of the dryer
and pretend to fold them as he walks in,
wearing dark sunglasses, head down,
hands in jean pockets, but I recognize
the birdlike mustache, the curls falling
out of the baseball cap like rose petals.
Are you Mike Farrell from M*A*S*H?” she asks
and when he nods, giggling like a groupie,
she says: It’s an honor to do your laundry.
I hide under the sheets, too star struck to speak.
As he exits, I look outside hoping the car
windows are rolled down and I can get a glimpse
of his wife and teenage daughter
as the car speeds towards the highway,
but they are invisible behind tinted glass.
I go home and watch a re-run of M*A*S*H
Then I put on a 45 RPM on the turntable
and listen to Shelley Fabares sing:
Johnny Angel, how I love him
He's got something that I can't resist
But he doesn't even know that I exist.
I wonder if she knows another woman
was under the sheets
with her husband in the Laundromat.
Credit
©2018 Sharon Waller Knutson
©2018 Sharon Waller Knutson
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