Duffy Jo

she was a bronco buster dead now her camera
level smile genuine in an endless loop of careful
scary optimism what ifs piled up in the dreams
of a new york city life she didn't think she could
actually inhabit her brown mexican boyfriend a tragedy
himself delimited in dekalb married now to her
old friend a desire to hold the past into infinity

her words leaked out in a widening river she
held out hope for her women friends even as
she hid them from the sharp waves of
asshole boys like craig mcgrath, or me, or even
poetry-fraud from cincinatti

a long way away now I hear you Rosie
what did you want to know
how could you learn to leave
where is fidel not in those arms now I tried to find
you at the cemetery where the angel turns
you were a true friend when peggy betrayed me
you knew forgiveness for so many and for yourself
you walked the fond strange walk,
the dance of the unabashed
and carol and polly hid you from the street and
took your hand and named a building after you
all confused by the sudden departure

And I don't think of you as gone, myself. There's your
face in my mind, laughing. Pretty much always laughing.
You definitely know what's funny; its all funny, isn't it?

Rosemary Richmond was a stalwart of the lit scene in Springfield, Illinois from the mid-1970s through her death in 1994 at the age of 49. Rosie and I did not always get famously along but we did get along, and we did respect each other and come to love each other over the years. She had a weird feminism that seemed fairly realistic except every once in awhile when she went over the top. She wrote a pretty great story about a group of women taking a vigilante approach to a man they all knew who date-raped women. What made it a Rosie story was that on the one hand the protaganist really wanted to kill the sob, but she also was totally against the idea. Someone said that a true genius could hold completely different concepts in the mind and believe in them equally and this was certainly true of Rosie.

For many years, and in an off and on again fashion, Rosie had a love affair with a man named Ricardo Mario Amezquita. Ric was a long time member of the Scarritt scene. He was in Knoepf's second poetry class. He played a lot of poker with us and we all smoked a lot of pot that Ric acquired. His best friend was a handsome greek man, Tony Kallas, who fancied himself the next Charlie Bukowski. Both Ric and Tony were very talented writers, but neither of them produced enough to get past the fact that they were not academics. Tony published a number of poems, and a chapbook in the sangamon poets series, Rock River Suite. Ric also published a chap, Eating Stones. He sold it door to door in his hometown of Sterling, Illlinois.

Rosie gave BB her first job in the land of the hardcore feminists. Rosie hired her at the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, ICADV. They were located on South Fourth Street in those days, in an old yellow victorian. Rosie worked for Barb the Shaw until Barb let her go. A weird experience for all concerned. By then Rosie was living in Cheryl Frank's old house on Washington. Rosie had originally moved into the house Pat and I had shared with Gary Adkins and Gael Cox until my relationship screwed things up and I had volunteered us to move, so the other people wouldn't have to. Later on Cheryl and her kids moved into the apartment next door to their house, and Rosie moved into Cheryl's old house, and Barb Shaw moved into the house I used to live in. So many aspects of my Springfield life worked like that. What was it Pat used to say?? The Lobster Quadrille, change partners and dance.