more getty's poems
Brownies

there's restaurant dishes and silverware
families, lots of kids
there's a kid in a "100% STONE COLD
WHOOP ASS" shirt...
a grandmother- walking slowely past the
salad bar to see what it has,
family pressing her "where do
you want to sit, Grandma?"
as she says "potato salad" they
ask again- Where do you want us to sit?"
the whoop ass kid has a plate full of brownies
the waitress tells his whoop ass dad that they
can't take them when they leave,
the dad and the blond whoop ass mom are grinning
"by god, we're going to do it, let's do it"
all hands go for the box,
all hands go for the chicken and the brownies
and the box, and the three are across the room
and out the door, while others dine
now there's just the sound of spoons hitting dishes
and there's conversation
a christian school mom, a sister and a brother,
women and men laughing,
the background music is so far back
that we can't hear it, but it's watching over us,
soothing the mother who asks "Matthew,
where's you coat?"
the waitresses bus tables with fewer brownies
than they imagined,
"This is the smoking section?"
"Yes, thank you, we're doing o.k."

-jennifer jo dooley
10/30/99

...in a black & white notebook...

Mulder's informant's name is X
mine's called X---(line)
and he's not dead
and he doesn't warn me of matters
of life and death
but he does like to sit
across the table from me
and scribble poems
in a black & white notebook
and drink dr pepper.

-jennifer jo dooley
1/30/99.... for Josh

Twenty one.

when my baby girl is walking
to day care
in the cold
her eyes water and i
wipe it away with my sleeve,
i've dried tears
off your baby's face, too,
but grown-ups are different.


-jennifer jo dooley
for Bob... 1/19/99

back to the front
Sociology FOOD.

"why do
these people in these starving countries
keep having all these babies when they can't
feed
the ones they have?"
"you can't give them food, food
won't help, You
have to TEACH them
how to survive."
And i'm thinking-
that you can't teach even you
to survive without
food.

-jennifer jo dooley
6/5/98