When we discovered oil in our backyard
bubbling beneath a suspicious strawberry that produced
fruits redolent of racetracks and truck stops
the nice man from ExxonMobil who showed up unannounced
assured us our financial worries had ended
and the fun could begin

Handing us a handsome business card
he promised to retire our mortgage
            provide a substantial monthly stipend
            and gift us an immodest bonus check
in exchange for the exclusive right to install a bobbing derrick in the garden
where the tomato vines normally flourished

Agreeing to this felicitous arrangement would not only benefit our banking
he assured us
but additionally
and this was the really neat aspect of the deal
we’d be doing our small part to guarantee America’s energy independence
from foreigners who hate our freedom

Explaining your great good luck to someone who doesn’t have it
can be tricky
so we told him
it sounded wonderful and very generous and we’d really like to help
win whichever of our nation’s ongoing wars was most important
but unbelievably
providentially we like to think
just last week
the wife and I discovered a vein of gold while digging in the potato patch
and after praying on it and paying off some bills
we’d made a pact with our Lord and Savior
to convert the excavation site into
a community swimming pool

– MK PUNKY

Note: This poem is excerpted from MK’s collection The Year of When: 365 Poems Beginning with the Same Word.