what you don’t know about donnie

everybody knows donnie
down home

he’s either riding on the same tractor
his grandaddy did
in the field
sleeves cut off
plaid shirt
displaying
shoulders a shade of
deep reddish brown
only scots irishmen who took indian wives
could conceive

or he’s
at ruckel’s buying feed
bullshitting an appalachian symphony
with the toothless old smoking raisin men
who welded their asses
to the bench out front in ’79
and refuse to leave

maybe you’ll run into him
at johnson’s white barn
trunk full of beer
because jesus prohibited drinking
before the government ever did

pretending he can’t dance
wearing cowboy boots
and the tightest faded levi’s jeans
you’ve ever seen

yeah, everybody knows donnie

you went to high school with him
you married him once
you divorced him twice
you went deer hunting with him
you went swimming drunk in the creek
you were in church the sunday he got saved

he was a pall bearer at your mother’s funeral

but what you don’t know about donnie is

he is more of a poet
than virgil ever was