{"id":1175,"date":"2012-02-29T01:34:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T01:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2014-06-24T06:35:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T06:35:45","slug":"complimentary-cocktails-by-wanda-morrow-clevenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/complimentary-cocktails-by-wanda-morrow-clevenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Complimentary Cocktails by Wanda Morrow Clevenger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Wanda Morrow Clevenger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Complimentary Cocktails<\/h1>\n

by Wanda Morrow Clevenger<\/p>\n

Bare necks blushed and sweat soaked my bra,
\nMatt smoothed his hair, again,
\nLinda was upset the courthouse flag was tattered,
\nCharity concerned we hadn’t flags to hold; I half-expected
\nshe might pluck a 25 one lining the street.<\/p>\n

We came outside too early, squinting and fidgeting,
\nas ten minutes dragged into twenty before traffic ebbed
\nunnoticed, then noticed, and all heads swung north
\nlike a row of tipped dominoes.<\/p>\n

Our two-block straggly string sprang to attention, toed the curb,
\nthe low rumble of motorcycles rounded the four-way
\nand rolled past slow enough to feel each angel’s fall; I bit my lip.<\/p>\n

A silver-gray hearse snailed forward and my mind exited
\nwondering when gray became the new black ride to eternity, and
\nI knew at my time I wanted to snail the streets of Carlinville
\nin a kid-glove-gray wagon, serve mini crab cakes and tempura sushi after,
\nprovide complimentary cocktails.<\/p>\n

Two police cruisers followed red blue red blue in that way they do
\nand I was back on the curb, teary family cars bringing up the rear;
\nfresh from the same sermon suffered every time a soldier dies.<\/p>\n

###
\nWanda Morrow Clevenger lives in Hettick, IL. One hundred thirty-five pieces of her work appear or are forthcoming in online and print publications (yes, she keeps count). Her debut book This Same Small Town in Each of Us, a collection of this and that and some poetry, released on October 30, 2011. Links to published work as well as new stuff hang out on her blog It’s All Just Telling Tales Out of School: http:\/\/wlc-wlcblog.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bare necks blushed and sweat soaked my bra,
\n Matt smoothed is hair, again,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-123"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}