"Fuckin Sunshowers", "Peanuts", & "Eatin From Grandma's Purple Hands" by Adam Van Winkle

FUCKIN SUNSHOWERS

We were drinkin beers

And eatin five-buck rib half-racks

At the bar down the street

Paddy Mack’s in Chicago

Our Wednesday ritual

Something to feel at home

In that giant city we lived in

For five years

Years ago

It’d been hot and muggy

And the sun was out

Then a shower started

Without a cloud in the sky

A drunk got up off the bar

And walked to the open doorway

Put his hands on his hips

And snorted out loud

“It’s a fuckin sun shower”

Years later in a new city

The sun is out and a sprinkle comes

And we laugh and say to each other

“It’s a fuckin sun shower”

And thank god for drunks

We saw in bars in Chicago

PEANUTS

One peanut will fill us

Nut so big it comes right to

The skin of the shell

She gained twenty pounds on one

And so did I in sympathy

Could we afford another peanut

I had barely lost the weight

From that first peanut

Could we really do this again

But another peanut grew

And now we got two

Same as Mom and Daddy did

EATIN FROM GRANDMA’S PURPLE HANDS

We went out early to avoid the heat

And picked all the ones that were ripe

Sat all day in rockers shelling peas

Into plastic hospital throw-up tubs

Grandma’s hands were deep purple

From the colored hulls

Those empty shells fed the guineas

We blanched the fruits of our labor

And put them in Ziplock baggies

We sucked the air out

And put them in the deep freeze

And it all took only twelve hours

And we fed ourselves

Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and currently resides with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. In addition to publishing his short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Gorko Gazette and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and Leftover Books. He is the founder and editor of Cowboy Jamboree Press and Magazine. Van Winkle is named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. Find him and his publications online at www.adamvanwinkle.com and @gritvanwinkle.