Jerry’s Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues by John Grochalski

jerry says
you know they never got back to me
the john birch society
i talked to a person at the number you gave me
a really lovely lady
she sounded like the mystical south
we talked about the state of the nation
and standing for the anthem
she asked me if i wanted a constitutional convention
and i told her hell no
jerry says
she gushed over the police
we trashed NAFTA and the U.N.
and i told her i would’ve served in the marines
if it weren’t for that bum knee of mine
and having to take care
of my mother
jerry says
gee, she was so nice on the phone
that woman from the john bitch society
it felt like i knew her for years
you ever meet someone like that?
feel like you know them for years?
well, that was what it was like between me and her
she told me that she was thankful
for my interest
in the john birch society
she said she’d mail me along some literature
and maybe some forms
but that was weeks ago
and i still haven’t heard a thing
jerry says
i wonder what went wrong
like maybe she didn’t feel the same way as me
or maybe she lost my address
gee, maybe i didn’t sound patriotic enough on the phone
i should’ve told her
how much i love the flag
jerry says
you know….next time i call
the john birch society
i think i’m going to ask
to speak
to a man.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.