The day you are married,

not the one you are wed,
surfaces like a white
porpoise on the Baltic Sea.

Some night beneath the sheets,
you challenge each other:
Recall the lyrics from an offhand tune.
And it’s as understood as it is unsaid

that in your best imitation of the twang
and timbre of the great Glen Campbell,
you’ll BELT that Rhinestone Cowboy. Paste
its echo to every corner of your home.









Rodd Whelpley is the secret poet in residence at the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency. His work recently has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Naugatuck River Review, Eunoia Review, and others. During the day, when he’s not scribbling instead of working, he runs an electric efficiency program for 33 cities in the state.

See another poem in 5.3