Seven Words
Five months’ pregnant, unhappy as 1.5 persons
were ever meant to be, I wore a bedspread dress
to hide his need, my mistake, and a field goal
kicker. Walking toward my unintended like an
Aztec virgin (but for the Firebird one-and-doner),
I thought, Could this be an ancient sacrifice
on the stone steps of a ziggurat as the high priest
pulls my heart out of my chest?
It’s been thirty-two years to the minute that I
married the future alcoholic. I calved twice—
once from the Pontiac and then on a heartless
Valentine’s Day. Divorced him, made unholy
congress with a door-to-door missionary,
divorced him to marry whatshisname, the line
of unintendeds like squirrely children, holding it
to pee.
As my father and I approached the altar
and the manchild I mistook for forever, I now
realize that every god-pocked thing in my life
has depended on what my hero my idol my rock
whispered at that moment. He turned to me
and said, “This could have been a great day.”
The Girl on the Bus
On the bus to Cincinnati, I sat next
to Helen of Troy. (The Troy just north
of Dayton.) But seriously, she had
an unforgettable classical beauty.
After an hour of pretending to nap,
I opened my eyes.
“Would you look at that?” I said.
“A scarlet tanager with a tufted titmouse.”
She said, “Haven’t you heard the saying,
‘There’s nothing new under the sun?’”
“But they were mating! How is that not new?”
She said, “Haven’t you heard the saying,
‘Love is blind?’”
Then she went back to reading her Bartlett’s.
Southern Ohio Truckers’ Notes
1.
Standing behind a father and his family
at a McConnellsville bookstore, I watched
his three girls step up to the author.
“I’m Autumn Day.” “I’m Stormy Day.”
“I’m Rainy Day.” The author grinned
at Daddy Overalls, who said, “By God,
if we’d of had another one, we’d a called
her Helluva.”
2.
At an all-night diner in Portsmouth,
I heard a long-hauler say, “Check out
the waitress’s eyes. Ain’t them the bluest
things ever was?” “No,” said his buddy,
“the bluest things ever was was my balls
at nineteen. I was raised Catholic.”
