for Chuck Moulton
It’s your birthday
so I set your favorite hula girl shot glass
on the TV where Judge Judy delivers
her old testament, lace collar justice
to the girl whose ex- boyfriend ran over
her dog. She’s suing for lost companionship,
veterinary bills and lost stud services.
But it turns out
the dog had been fixed and the boyfriend says
she let it run freakin wild in the streets
and she only gave him a half hour
to get all his shit out that day.
I pour out two fingers of Jack
and set fire to a small pile
of speeding tickets in a stolen Casa de Fruta ashtray—
“here’s to freedom—
here’s to justice”—
Judge Judy smacks her gavel down
with a bang that echoes across a field
where flurries of lost poems scatter.
Somewhere in Heaven
the gates swing wide for your motorbike—
you’ve got a new set of uppers,
the wind in your hair
and a dynamite first line.
Dixie Salazar has published three books of poetry: HOTEL FRESNO by Blue Moon Press in 1988, REINCARNATION OF THE COMMONPLACE (national poetry award winner) by Salmon Run Press in 1999, and BLOOD MYSTERIES by University of Arizona in 2003. LIMBO, her novel, was published by White Pine Press in 1995. She has also published numerous poems and some short stories in about sixty different literary journals, including, THE MISSOURI REVIEW, THE RED BRICK REVIEW, POETRY INTERNATIONAL and PLOUGHSHARES, as well as quite a few anthologies such as MANY CALIFORNIAS, UNSETTLING AMERICA and HIGHWAY 99. Her newest collection of poetry, FLAMENCO HIPS AND RED MUD FEET is forthcoming from University of Arizona Press in t he fall of 2009.
Currently she teaches writing and literature at California State University and shows oil paintings and collage work at the Silva/Salazar studios in Fresno, California. She has also taught extensively in the California prisons and the Fresno County jail.