Wife Poem #62 / Dave Childers and The Carpenter Ants!

Last night we listened to
Dave Childers and The Carpenter Ants!
wail it in a deserted conference room
of a shuttered fifties era department store
in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
for ten bucks a head.

“Blood on the ceiling!”
“Blood on the walls!”
We chortled along with Dave
in a song about a double tavern killing
a couple counties away.

Then, “Run! Skeleton run!”
about a wife murderer
hunted down and buried on a ridge.
From time to time he’d rise from his grave
to head downhill into town.
Year after year, he continued
until eventually all that was left of him
was a skeleton.
The townsfolk would say,
“Go home, Bill.”

My wife usually does not burst into song.
But her eyes sparkled as we yodeled the chorus,
like squirrel tails waving
from bicycle handle bars.

At evening’s end, Dave thanked us for
“getting’ off your couches
to come down and listen.”
X