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I feel if I write one more
free-form poem
it might just drive me over the
edge
and I'll end up speaking in
sentence
fragments
spaced frequently with
Shatneresque
pauses
dripping with pre
tentious phrases
like countless pigeon turds
sprinkled over my shoulders
and I'll turn my head
suddenly
expecting someone to look my way
before turning back
and continuing to speak
to someone who is only
halflistening
so as to seem cultured
without really doing any work
and I'd think,
what a hypocrite
while really I'm doing the same thing
and I tapped the hood with my right hand
so the metal would click against my ring
tap, tap, and flicked the ash away again
leaning against the dirty hood of my car
it's mine for the night, mine like my shirt
or my lips, or my tangled braids
(but not like my ring: that's a different kind of mine.)
Yes, the car's mine for the night, and the gas,
so I hung a cross on the rear-view
and tapped my ring against the wheel
to the beat of my music
and drove my car to the corner store
two towns away, where nobody knows me
where I got ten bucks worth of cancer and diabetes
and cashing it in here under the neon,
leaning against the dirty hood of my car
it's mine for the night, mine like my story
which I'll only tell you if you look at me
in that very uncertain way.
No, not you.
Him, yes. I'd tell him, the one with the hat
I shoot him that look. I flick the ashes away.
I shift, ever so slightly, aside on the hood
while he's walking away.
and I tapped the hood with my right hand
so the metal would click against my ring
until I stand up and grind my toe in the dirt
if there's anything in this corner-store lot
it can follow me home, and be with me there
for twenty years I've waited at this stop
watching girls half my age
blow smoke instead of mist to the cold air
and boys dressed for warmer weather
leaning on their canes of sugar
mistaking me for someone worth their interest
and another twenty years go by
it never got warmer
and those girls are now mock-suicidal teens
mistaking those boys for
someone worth their interest
I'm still waiting at this stop, overlooking
arches and a golden tree
whose leaves are dollar bills — but
it's winter now, they've fallen
and lay brown at my feet in the gutter
but hands still gather what they can
afraid for coming years
which pass, twenty more, or so I guess
and it's still winter
now I'm the one blowing smoke in place of steam
at an old man twice my age, perhaps I knew him
when I was in school and
sat behind those smoking girls
he was our teacher, leaning too far toward them
with his hand touching hers
saying, "your writing is superb"
but now he's not worth my interest
and he passes in his car
it's late, by far
I've forgotten how long I've waited
a hundred years or more
the fingers that I've counted on too cold to move
the arches and the tree no longer gold
those girls with their own girls now,
who blow smoke at boys whose interest wavers
because nothing ever changes
except for age and worth — one goes up, one goes down
and the thing I'm waiting for?
it never comes.
