Two Poems by Kathryn Lorenzen

Last Visit to the Ladies’ Room at Shorty’s Just Before It Closed Forever

Five days before Shorty’s closed forever
I made my final pilgrimage, pay my respects to 
Marge, retiring to Arizona after keeping 
the place open years past making money.

Her pillowed arms warmed me, brought me beers.
I sat on my regular stool, which was my dad’s before me,
his generation in nursing homes or gone ahead.
My generation and younger ones needing other kingdoms
and preferring the TGI Friday’s by the interstate.

After three drinks it was time to visit what 
I really came to see, walking past the shafts
of sun slanting through the back windows,
glinting off the neon Miller Lite sign, and into
the ladies’ room, walls and stalls covered
with memorabilia, a collaged chronicle:

County fair posters featuring B-list recording artists,
photos of 4-H Club contest winners with prize 
calves and pigs, ads promoting tractor pulls 
and garage sales, announcements for Knights of
Columbus dances and church potlucks, defaced 
political bumper stickers, carved and magic-markered 
hearts and arrows claiming sweethearts forever,
notices of free kittens, page of an Avon catalogue 
with Donna’s phone number, pictures of prom 
kings and queens, a battle of the bands postcard,
program from the school play fifteen years ago,
jokes from Reader’s Digest, laminated obituary 
of Shorty’s first owner Phil, autographed posters 
from musicians that played the back room stage.

I snapped photos on my phone,
knowing I would never again be 
enveloped by the life of my town.
Then did my business and washed my hands,
staring down at the grubby drain.


The Four-Poster Bed

My father leans against the pillows on 
the four-poster bed. I have something
I haven’t told you, he said. Your mother
came to me in a dream. I woke up
and she was sitting right beside me.
She said nothing, just looked at me 
and smiled, as young and beautiful 
as she ever was.

He is old now, in this bed that has
been with him his entire life. He was
conceived on it in Dorrance, Kansas, 
where the KKK burned a cross in his yard 
after my grandfather the mayor
welcomed a black family to live there.
He could see it, huddled on the bed 
with his mama.

Now there is a different light shining 
in my father’s eyes, the light of belief
that my mother has visited him,
reassuring him, inviting him. She has not
been gone long and he will follow her 
soon, after his last night dreamless
on the four-poster bed.

Photo by Stephen Locke

Kathryn Lorenzen is a singer-songwriter, poet, and career and creativity coach. With an earlier career in marketing and recruiting, she coaches freelance writers and artists seeking livelihood in support of their art. Kathryn co-leads Your Right Livelihood with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, and she serves on the Board of Transformative Language Arts Network.

Photo by Stephen Locke

Guest Editor Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam’s Well, a novel; and The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she is offers writing workshops, coaching, and collaborative projects YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.