The Day We Played No Golf

Into the land of Lindrith I, a stranger, turned

Right into Ma’s Café, the only food we found

In a corner of a corner of the west

Overrun with deer and the dying rural dream

I sifted through the layers: of its famous

Its obscure, it’s roads (mostly) we would learn.

Years before, Hopper made this town his own

He settled in just past his easy rider days,

Bought a canyon, brought a snarling face

Arrived late one summer night at the dance

And got into fisticuffs, as he often would;

He won the fight, they said, but left alone.

At Ma’s Café, Ma herself held forth

About the horrifying world outside

Shootings, NYC and worst of all-Hillary

Pa nodded and concurred, then went back to work;

We got directions, paid, and left a tip,

Drove left, then right, then south, then north

We quested for a course and a fellow

Who had posted some phat badass video,

So we motored on a dozen back roads till

The earth expired (like Dennis) into sand.

Then peeked inside an antler-covered shack:

Where deer skulls put a heavy on our mellow

My husband said, “They’ll shoot us, dear,”

And I agreed — plus, I was hot and tired

And so we would play no golf that day

Nor find the folks who built it there, within

A canyon, tho’ we found the soul of Lindrith

Where we’d be back to play some other year.