40 Housewives

Bruce: 40 housewives start out that day.
No note, they just got up and went West, the direction of change,
The biggest direction of all. You could see them swaying in the breeze.

Stirring soup.
Hoping.
The housewives moved out onto the highway. Cheekbones to the wind.

Gargling destiny.
They had left no note on the fridge with magnetic grapes.
There hadn't been time.
Some of them held pies out in front of them,
like divining rods of freedom.

They'd meant to put the pies on the windowsill to cool,
but for some reason they just kept on going.

And by now those pies were so cool, they're smoldered.
They were red hot, brother.

500 housewives,
no longer just brunettes, blonds, and redheads,
moved through Birmingham.

They'd thrown down their oven mitts.
They'd cast their collanders off some miles back.

Through Casper and Cheyenne,
Des Moines and Fort Wayne, they marched.
Gaining strength. Gaining calm.

There was no need for TV trays
In the cool breeze of the Arizona desert.
There was no reason to cut coupons
from the papers and the towns that

Dotted their path.
But, my friend,
if you'd seen them
over the horizon
like a watery pool of locusts,
they came and were comin'.

Kids holdin sticks, and dogs,
and men with bellies
lined what seemed to their path.

Men just stood there as if to say,
"Honey, what's for dinner?"

The men didn't realize there would be no hot dinner,
not even a soup and sandwich.

Cathy's not cookin',
not this good eve, fatboy!
Because tonight the dinnertables had really turned.

By the time they reached the ocean
they were 5000 housewives strong.
Holding hands, with a crazed-ferret look in their eyes, slowly, together,
they took a step.

And as their tired feet creased the moonlit water
they paused and looked back from where they'd came,
As if to say,
"Are you comin?"

[Woman's voice echoes "Are you comin? Comin?"]

"It's easy."

[woman's voice echoes "It's easy. It's easy."]