Riverside girls 
wade knee-deep 
waves, vees, 
and shimmer, 
sliver downstream, 

splash and flick 
water at boys—
shore boys, 
sand boys, 
mud boys, 
sun halo boys 

so what 
they say 
so what 
and they smile, 
girls do 

they know what 
and dip their fingers 
trail fingers in the current 
write letters 
in the water 
that whirl away 

and they will too 
boys if you 
don’t make a move, 
make a move, 
get your feet wet 

join in and wade 
follow the lead 
of girls 
Riverside girls, 
watery girls, 
silver wave 
girls walking 
in the water 

walking away 
you missed 
your chance 
they’re walking away 
missed your chance 
walking away 
missed your chance 
so what? 
missed your chance 
that’s what 

so what? 
Riverside girls 
that’s what 
that’s what 
that’s what 

* Author’s Note

This poem had its origins way back when I read Dave Etter’s book Well You Needn’t: The Thelonius Monk Poems (Independence, Missouri: Raindust Press, 1975). I am a rabid Monk fan and could feel the rhythm and themes of his tunes in every one of Etter’s poems. I especially loved “Ruby, My Dear” (Etter’s poems took their titles directly from the titles of Monk compositions).

I took as my inspiration Miles Davis’s “So What,” that fabulous Dorian mode song as heard on the 1959 album (Kind of Blue), as well as on one particular afternoon some years back when my wife and I went wading the Arkansas River that flows through Riverside Park in Wichita, Kansas.

I highly recommend listening to the song on YouTube, to get a feel for the progression, then read my poem aloud using the song as background. Begin reading as the piano and bass intro phases into the “So What” riff at about 34 seconds in. Read as the music moves you, keying your words to the riff, pausing after each line, then improvising as the brass players do, as the song progresses to the solos, then reusing the riff as the song ends, which is what I did as I wrote the poem. If you read too fast, just improvise using the lines of the ultimate and penultimate stanzas as the music fades. And enjoy!

Roy J. Beckemeyer’s

latest poetry collections include The Currency of His Light (Turning Plow Press, 2023) and Mouth Brimming Over (Blue Cedar Press, 2019). Stage Whispers (Meadowlark Books, 2018) won the 2019 Nelson Poetry Book Award. Amanuensis Angel (Spartan Press, 2018) comprises ekphrastic poems inspired by modern artists’ depictions of angels. His first book, Music I Once Could Dance To (Coal City Press, 2014), was a 2015 Kansas Notable Book. With Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, he co-edited Kansas Time+Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (Little Balkans Press, 2017). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2015 and 2020) and for Best of the Net (2018), and was selected for The Best Small Fictions 2019.

Beckemeyer serves on the editorial boards of Konza Journal and River City Poetry. A retired engineer and scientific journal editor, he is also a nature photographer who, in his spare time, researches the mechanics of insect flight and the Paleozoic insect fauna of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. He lives in Wichita, Kansas, where he and his wife recently celebrated their 60th anniversary.

Please visit author’s website for more information about his books, as well as links to interviews and readings (scroll down his About page for the link-list).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Megarhyssa, ekphrastic poem by Beckemeyer in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 14, August 2022), nominated by MacQ for the Pushcart Prize

⚡ The Color of Blessings in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 5, October 2020), nominated by MacQ for the Pushcart

⚡ Featured Artist in KYSO Flash (Issue 12, Summer 2019); showcasing Beckemeyer’s poetry, prose poetry, and insect photography

⚡ Words for Snow, a prose poem in KYSO Flash (Issue 9, Spring 2018), which was selected for reprinting in The Best Small Fictions 2019