The Middy

my hands
ache from pounding tables
banjos and footstomping
the Minnesota north
you all look like
screaming whiskey

and the lot of us defending some
space in our heads where great people
go to make us better, to scrape back
the roughage and bring up the blacker soil
to slap a brother's back and promise
dancing, were they to paint us
a good word or tune
possessed of the great wood
and sound of lake country,
we were the fury there
the raised farm and empty field
arun with Saturday legs and
moon grass backs
rowdier for the tune