Pissed Is Nothing
after "What's Going On" by Pamela Gemin

It’s spring, it’s 1970
and we’re on our way
to Janis Joplin. Careful with
that water pipe or you’ll
burn a hole in the buckets
before this yellow bug gets
to Oklahoma City where Janis will
be drunk and yell pig
so the security cops drag her
off before she really gets started.
With a bridesmaid and a best man
in tow, this marriage is as new
and destined to fail
as I-35, cheap concrete already
buckling under them from shady deals
and kickbacks. The bridesmaid
passes the Ripple back and says
pull over I’ve gotta puke while
a grasshopper the size of a clothespin
guts itself on the windshield
and thunderbellies turn purple
then green to the west, churning
up their spring tornados. The new bride
holding down the smoke squeaks Dad’s
pissed we’re moving to Dallas.
The best man says pissed is nothing.
Mine won’t let me in the house
after he found that hit of windowpane
in the glovebox. We all know Janis will
make it o.k. with “A Piece of My Heart,”
so the groom guns it down the off ramp
and the world tilts just so for the
seconds it takes for someone to
turn the war off the radio,
turn up the Jimmi Hendrix
and keep the heat off our tail.