Austin Seventies
and we are at the Sweet Pecan Cafe
sitting on outdoor tables leaning toward
the country singers up front and jumping around in the back
of the whole enterprise are rats! Waiter says
we can’t do anything about them so
we toss them our chips
now a poet reads about the
military-industrial complex which we hate
and will get rid of soon and we don’t ever see it all
coming, these little cafes all torn down
and the big dark buildings going
up and Starbucks instead of
this place we love
all we can see is happy rats
dancing and we throw them
our chips
About the Poet
Janet McCann is a crone poet who has been teaching creative writing at Texas A&M since 1969. Journals publishing her work include Kansas Quarterly, Parnassus, Nimrod, Sou’Wester, Christian Century, Christianity And Literature, New York Quarterly, Tendril, Poetry Australia, and Mccall’s, among many others. She is a 1989 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship winner and Professor of English. Her most recent collection is The Crone at the Casino from Lamar University Press, 2013.