Drinking with Jerry Jeff by Greg Clary

“You can’t do anything again, but

you can do something similar.”

Jerry Jeff told me that over a cold

Belikin at Pedro’s in Ambergris Caye.

He told me a lot of things.

“I don’t take requests, only suggestions.

Bojangles is played different every night 

‘cause I hate singalongs.” 

Huntington WV, with Willie, was the first.

Then Pittsburgh, NYC, Austin, Alexandria,

Akron, Gruene Hall, a private party in Erie, and

this, a week in Belize.

He leaned in and rumbled,

“Anything worth doing is

worth overdoing.

Tonight, anyway.”

An admiring delilah stopped by 

and said, “You the Man.”

He laughed that laugh and shot back,

“Well, somebody has to be The Man.”

Greg Clary is Professor Emeritus of Rehab and Human Services at Clarion University, Clarion Pa. His poems have appeared in The Watershed Journal and North/South Appalachia.

His photographs have been published in The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, and The Watershed Journal.

He resides in Sligo, Pennsylvania and is a Son of Turkey Creek, West Virginia