NaPM 5 April 2022

[Semicircle]

Off To See the Wizard

Like a ritual every year
we would gather around
an old black and white Muntz TV
when the TV Guide showed
The Wizard of Oz was coming
on Sunday, right after Ed Sullivan
and the Beatles. Our only sister 
started popcorn, and all 10 of us
packed in, and prepared
to enact our favorite parts
(usually the flying monkeys).

So many years later we couldn’t
re-enact that closeness we’d felt
as we crammed into your room
at the hospital.  When the VCR
ate the tape, we recited our parts
from memory.  Clicking your heels
3 times was your part, but this time
it couldn’t bring you back home.

I just came out of a Wizard of Oz production,
me and the whole family were in it.

My ma was in charge of costume designing and props,
the production value of the whole play came up because of her.

Just like the original play 
the wicked witch caught on fire,
what are the odds?