Bobby Steve Baker is a cosmetic surgeon in Lexington KY, moving toward the status of full-time writer. After a 35-year career in academic medicine, he completed an MFA in poetry at National University, San Diego. His work has been published widely in the United States and Canada (his homeland), and can be read at fine journals including Grey Sparrow, The Boston Literary Magazine, and Verse Wisconsin. He lives with his wife and trusted editor Sharon (also a cosmetic surgeon), experiencing the comings and goings of 5 boys and 1 very large Airedale. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice and has published 2 chapbooks, Numbered Bones (Accents Publishing) and The Taste of Summer Lightning (Finishing Line Press).

Banjo
By Bobby Steve Baker

Charles Schulz said the world is hard
and reasons for sadness are hard to avoid
but he had a plan:
every newborn baby should come with a banjo.

Clever guy, old Charlie.
He knew a lot about heart,
the tender one, the hard one.
I think Lucy had a heart as soft as peanut butter
and hard as peanut brittle,
never mind the pull-out field goal; a scorpion is a
scorpion.

Just sprinkle in
the thunky tingling stream of running strum
from a pre-war aged White Lady claw-hammered
worn skin covered backless banjo,
you’ll know what he had in mind.

Simple pleasures,

no mystical melancholy of the holler,

no chug
of white lightning in the foggy mountain rain.

Here’s one thing,
the only thing,
the lady I love says my playing brings her pleasure.
There is nothing better.

So let’s fire up the Wildwood Flower, Soldier’s Joy, and
Wagon Wheel one more time,

and one more time for her

and one more time for her.