Hans Ostrom

Hans Ostrom (b. 1954) grew up in Sierra City, California. His grandfather, a Swedish immigrant, worked in gold mines in the Sierra Nevada range. Ostrom, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Puget Sound, teaches composition, creative writing, rhetoric, and literature and is codirector of African American studies. He is the author of Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction (1993) and A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia (2001). Ostrom’s articles, poems, and short stories have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals. He is also the author of the novels Three to Get Ready (1991) and Honoring Juanita (2010), as well as two poetry collections, Subjects Apprehended (2000) and The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems, 1976–2006 (2006).

They call each other E. Elvis picks

wildflowers near the river and brings

them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports

Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.5

Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High.

They take long walks and often hold hands.

She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.

Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,10

Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard

Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon

he will play guitar and sing “I Taste a Liquor

Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”15

Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone

in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river

and nap. They will not think of Amherst

or Las Vegas. They know why God made them

roommates. It’s because America20

was their hometown. It’s because

God is a thing

without feathers. It’s because

God wears blue suede shoes.