Hedging
by Neal
Bowers
This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from the rich soil of Iowa’s literary tradition. Today we are going to hear "Hedging" by Neal Bowers a professor of English at Iowa State University in Ames. Although it sounds like it is going to be about gambling and bets, the poem is really a tender and beautiful love poem concerning the give and take necessary in a successful long-term relationship, how one has to be ready and willing to relieve the other to do that loved one’s domestic chores as if he or she weren’t there, even though one knows he would never want her to go.
Hedging
She says the flavor he
has liked
in her vegetable soup for years
is bay leaf, shows him the can
on the shelf with the other spices,
yields up one by one her secret
additives – a dash of thyme
in scrambled eggs, sweet basil
in the chicken casserole.
He, in turn, shows her how to start
the lawnmower and set the carburetor screw,
explains why it is best to mow
back and forth instead of in a square.
The way she separates whites and
colors
for the weekly wash and measures
out detergent in her small, cupped hand
amazes him as he studies her movements
and the settings on the washer dial.
Under the hood, she is less adept,
checking all the fluids as he told her to –
water, oil, brake, transmission, power steering.
He goes back later to make sure
all the caps are tight.
If a fuse should blow, she can change
it,
and he can starch and iron his shirts,
assuming there would be anything to see
if he weren’t there, or anywhere to go
if she were gone.
"Hedging" by Neal Bowers from the book Night Vision
published by Bookmark Press was originally published in the Southern Poetry
Review.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
Neal Bowers lives in Ames, Iowa with his wife Nancy, who is also writer, and their four cats. He is author of three books of poetry most recently Night Vision from BkMk Press, two critical studies of contemporary poets (both from the University of Missouri Press), a nonfiction book Words for the Taking: A Case of Plagiarism (WW Norton) and just recently a novel Loose Ends (Random House (2001).