Oyster Boy Review 04  
  Spring 1996
 
 
 
 
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» Levee 67

 
 
 
Poetry


Wing Tips

Chris Stafford


John Evans got old gold stars
On both his pretty little wing tip shoes.
Drew put em there with a big old bold paint pen.
It's not so much the look he likes
It's the feel they have,
And then they're just like flying.
Like real wing tips he tells me he's sure
They carry him home
When he needs to find
Some place that's a little bit more secure.
They're easier he says made for walking,
But in time though they let him sure fly
More better, they're best than his simple boots.
And I've heard him say it's just like
A one minute trip from Stull to Duluth,
Which is really more story than lie.
He speaks real plain, like a farmer, slow and good
Serious, looks at the floor still as he thinks.
So though some times he trembles,
He's a steady boy, sure it seems
The kids he knows, often prose and pose
He's an angel wrapped loose in blue jeans.
Believes in every thing he does.
Likes Country music, alone he never was.
Shares what he sees.
Says pretty please,
Yes ma'am, winks twice when he smiles.

Mostly though he's real concerned about
If all he does is just right or best.
He's subtle, unconcerned with exactitudes,
Wears an old Superman t-shirt on his chest,
And just for luck keeps an old silver dollar hid in a vest
Rolled up inside a trunk
Laid back in the bed of his pickup truck,
Forty-seven years off the assembly line
Which keeps keeping on,
John says it's a real must.
He walks, rolls along

With these few things that he owns.
They're all he's got,
But for his ten gallon heart,
And that, he says,
Sure is enough.