For Carry A. Nation

Since she swung her ax in Kansas,
my home state, I thought they taught us
about her as of a local oddity.
But years later, I asked around.
Everyone remembers Carry Nation.
She’s the familiar name and photo
that may not sit together on the hard
wood attic floor of your memory.
She wears black and carries an ax.
Some recall the bible in her other hand.
Some aren’t even sure how she used them.
But there’s her name, written in your
careful child script. Maybe the photo
in your head is the one of Emily Dickinson.
Maybe her poems remind you of
the clean, wet glass shards and the smell
of rum as it whipped off the ax head
when she drew it back to swing again.
Around here, she was famous as the Devil
and a good show for bar patrons.

But Carry, the bars are open here,
and they sell liquor on Sunday now!
Even your smiling wraith of a portrait,
pasted into the old elementary school
history books among the photos
of countless men–even your measured
madness couldn’t stop the cups turning.
So here’s to you... I raise my glass
and do not drink. I throw it, still filled,
into the fire, where the heat turns it
suddenly into light.