Mary Jane Makes Groovy Brownies,

says the young man in the long
hair, headband and bell bottoms
in Haight-Ashbury in the seventies.
Gimme a dollar and I’ll sell you pot.

His girlfriend in a long flowered dress
hands me green leaves in a plastic baggie.
I paid for a pot, I say. Pot and weed,
same difference, she says.

Neither of us drink tea in our twenties
so my sister and I bake the leaves in brownies.
It’s probably alfalfa, this Montana girl thinks.
But I didn’t see any cows hanging around.

The brownies are so delicious we can’t
stop eating them so we bag the rest
for the trip to Fisherman’s Wharf.
My sister’s boyfriend is driving us

in his blue bug, me in the backseat.
Whenever I tell him how to drive,
he says:  Give her another brownie.
We all laugh as I gobble it down.

I hand the ice cream man a dime
for the one scoop cone as I lick
the licorice laughing hysterically.
It’s a dollar, he says. I laugh.

It’s a dime in Montana. He barks:
This is California. I laugh even harder.
His face reddens so I reach in my purse
and hand him a greenback.

The four bills he gives me back
float like butterflies in the breeze
and I fly along with them.
She’s stoned, someone says.

Six decades later in Arizona I watch
Willie at ninety in a headband and beard
on the internet claiming his supplement
prevents and cures dementia.

Order it, I tell my husband. Is it Marijuana?
he asks. The advertisement says: Straight
from the cannabis plant and it is legal.
We don’t order it. Being stoned once is enough.