“A Sedated Dog Tips His Hat,” and other poems, Martha Coats.
A Sedated Dog Tips His Hat
Call him Jeramy, since
I don’t know his name.
A brittle man,
lips pulled inward
like he’s sucking lemons.
Holds a “will work for food” sign,
and tips his hat
even though
he’s not wearing one.
Pants slipping off his hips,
he’s as threatening
as a sedated dog.
And today
a police cruiser
swerved suddenly left
to confront Jeramy.
Officers stepped
forward, fitted uniforms
belts heavy with
gun, taser, pepper spray,
and, as they approached,
to each officer,
Jeramy
tipped his hat.
___
Roping Water Color in a Country Club Kitchen
Julio’s palms are charred
like pan cracklings.
Squinting from 400° heat
he slips out prime roasts barehanded,
without mitts
saying he stopped feeling
long ago.
Calling my name
with the Spanish in his English
he stories while we
balance on lopsided cabbage crates
and peel carrots and potatoes.
Claims he found the horse,
Felicia, her coat, coffee
running wild,
fluid as watercolor
near home in Puerto Rico.
Stampeded her into a river, knowing
the weight of running water
tramples fury, extinguishes
every reflex for freedom.
Her neck roped,
Julio bobbed and popped
his lean, eleven-year-old body
from the water
swing-kicking his hairless leg
over her tail
until bruised and weary
she allowed him bareback.
Julio smoothes a thumb
over the bubbles of his seared palm
and asks,
“Can you imagine the beauty
of an untamed Felicia?”
_____
A Runaway Slave Runs in Rain
At the base of Boston’s State House
stoops an artist,
grubby as a chimney sweep,
his clothes, discolored and thinning around the elbows
and knees.
Duct taped to the sidewalk,
a cardboard sign reads,
Accepting Donations for Supplies
Only.
On community concrete
he’s smudged a chalk mural of Ellen Craft.
Born a slave,
sired by her owner, Colonel James Smith,
Ellen had skin more white than black.
The artist,
manipulating rich hues of green, gray, blue and gold
highlights
the cream in her complexion
contrasting delicate shades
of peonies and sherbet
for her shawl and blouse.
My hands clasped
head tilted left
I marvel
at Ellen depicted as a
woman
not disguised as a
man,
passing for a white
man,
right hand bound, appearing crippled,
arthritic,
traveling from Georgia
with her servant,
on a Northbound train,
to Philadelphia,
for medical treatment
only.
The artist stands.
Eyes shut,
curves his spine backwards,
lifts his chin skyward.
Opens eyes, observes
low, hazel clouds.
Asks, do I know today’s
weather?
Reflexively, I say,
“Rain.”
Then, apologetically,
“Rain.”
Martha Coats is a full-time writer of poetry, novellas, and short stories. She is inspired by her family’s immigrant history and the real lives of people she has known or observed while living in Boston, Atlanta, and New York City. Martha is massively supported by the never-ending love of her husband, sons, countless family members and friends. Martha feels honored to be included in the following publications: The Hat Maker, her poem published in Shooter Literary Magazine’s 2023 winter issue. Delivery, her novella named as a semi-finalist in the 2023 WTAW Alcove Chapbook Series. The Things She Ate, her short story featured in Qu Literary Magazine’s Summer 2022 publication. Martha earned a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College and has worked at Peachtree Publishers in Atlanta, Workman Publishing in New York City, and Pearson Education in New Jersey.