Altered States
My cousin Cindy, whom I liked the best
Of all, got married to a Kiowa
And moved to someplace in the Middle West—
I think it must have been Ohiowa—
Where she commenced to drop a child a year
Until the well they’d dug by hand ran dry.
She reassessed her lot, and it was clear
That planting roots deserved another try.
They bounced around in humid Florabama
And spent a month in lower Mississouri,
Which should have spelled an ending to the drama,
But this was just the middle of their story.
They drove to sunny-rocky Calirado,
Expecting troves of gold in every creek,
But nothing better than an avocado
Was theirs to claim in any given week.
In time they drifted to Hawaialaska,
Where folks were much too warm or much too cold.
At last they settled down in Wyobraska,
A haven for the weary and the old.
C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series The Victory Garden. His book of poems, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder, was published in 2013 by White Violet Press. Although some of his light verse has appeared in poetry journals from time to time, he is better known for his “slight” verse.