Friday at work people tell her:
“Great dress.”
“Thank you!”
“You have a date tonight?”
“I do.”
“With Mr. Right?”
“Or Mr. Right Now.”
BIG LAUGH.
At five o’clock
she drives home,
removes the dress and
hangs it up,
washes her face of
mascara and blush.
She tries to smile,
to laugh at her ruse,
but sees only smoke
in the mirror.
Looking around at their reunion the man thought, I remember her. 20? No – 30 years ago we dated. She was cute. She’s still cute. She had a great vocabulary. Because of her I can say, “My vegetable garden is languishing this year.” Because of her I don’t smoke cigarettes. My wife never knew who to thank for that. I enjoy the occasional cigar when I win a round of golf. She said she liked the smell of cigar smoke on a man. I wonder if she still does. 30 years. Man she’s still cute. She’d point out some nonexistent wrinkles, posture less than perfect. I just want to grab hold of her hand, kiss her cheek, hear her laugh. She always liked my laugh. Said I was smart-funny. I wonder if she still has that ring I bought her at the estate sale, a band of square-cut sapphires. I wanted to get her a diamond, show the world what she’s worth. She smiled in her eyes. “This is perfect. It’s a promise ring.” One she didn’t keep. I don’t know if I ever forgave her. I know I didn’t forget her. If she turns around and I catch her eye, will she remember me? How could she not? Sailboat rides on Charleston Harbor, oysters on the grill, how she’d get mad when I beat her at racquetball (I showed no mercy, I like to win), sex in the bucket seat of my Toyota on some back road of Tennessee. I used to type her manuscripts – Romance – hoping to help her in her writing success. Did she make it? I’ll ask her. In the back of my mind I’ll be picturing Tennessee. I’ll – there’s my beautiful wife, coming back from the bathroom. She says old exes can’t be friends.
Jane, after days and days of rain: The sun is out! Yay!
Leeza: Don’t get your hopes up. It’ll probably rain more later.
Later –
Jane: Look how pretty the sunshine is.
Leeza: It’s probably hot.
Upon sharing these rays of sunshine with a friend, Friend said: Hell, we ain’t got no hope.
Jane:
Nope.
No hope.
I’m just a dope.
Don’t hand me a rope
‘cuz I can’t cope …
or a bar of soap.
I don’t need to smell nice
and I won’t take advice,
‘cuz nope,
there’s just no hope.
Friend: You need to scratch that into the wall of your cell.
He sits on the front porch
to drink his drink
from a coffee mug until 2 or 3,
from a plastic tumbler the rest
of the day and much of the night.
From my kitchen window
I see the red glow
of his burning cigarette
across the unlit road
when neither of us sleeps.
He’s been ill.
He’s lost his capacity for recall,
his driver’s license, and
his once successful business.
Always in pain,
joints swollen and sore,
mostly he sits, staring at the concrete.
Sometimes he nods off.
I’ve awakened him
when the snow has built up
around his feet,
sifted into a blanket on his lap.
“Hi. Craig. Aren’t you cold?”
It’s been an hour since he’s stirred.
I was worried.
He smiles, bemused,
sees the cold cigarette between his fingers.
Before I’ve crossed the street
he’s lit up,
his body slumping into
the folding chair.
No more decisions to make,
no more than if
he wants a drink, needs a coat.
A day passes. Another. Many.
Today the porch is empty.
In a wall of noise the emergency truck arrives,
a fire engine, an ambulance,
two sheriff’s cars.
There is a rush around him
as he hasn’t rushed in years.
A choice, one last decision to make,
to go.
I love to shop, shoes and books,
clothes especially,
but the thought of working in Retail?
I’d rather slit my wrists with a hanger.
And hangers are why.
When I hang my things I can see:
1 white long-sleeve T-shirt
2 white short-sleeve T-shirts
3 white tank tops
Same T-shirts neatly folded and stacked:
1 I can’t tell what’s in the pile
2 I waste time rummaging through the pile
3 The pile is no longer neatly stacked.
But hangers leave dimples
(only cute on Shirley Temple),
and anything with straps gang-chains
hangers, entwines them like lovers, like wrestlers.
Perhaps the patience angels
see me lose mine as I heave
the plastic and metal to the floor
with a strangled yell.
My fear of hell isn’t fire and brimstone.
It’s an eternity of sorting a warehouse-
size box of hangers
after a one-day sale at Kohl’s.
~ Jane
They call it settling
the reason this aging
plaster suffers cracks:
fine webs of them throughout the house,
a few deep enough to cause concern.
We exercise maintenance:
replace a rotting joist,
caulk the gaps,
ream the pipes and flush the tank,
but the to-do list is never done:
the back door is drafty,
electrical shorts leave us in the dark,
and the plumbing suffers a constant drip.
Good bones, they say,
keep the walls standing
solid around me,
until age and gravity
exact their toll
and I no longer recognize
this house in which I dwell.
You cut me off
and steal my space.
I’m so mad I could spit.
I’m a lady,
so instead
I flip you the bird.
Righteous I picture me
pumping my middle finger at you,
riding the surge between my head and my heart,
my heart and my
– oh – my heart
shoves my – index – finger
too – at you.
Peace.
– Jane
Stepping outside to feed the birds
I find fog risen in the night.
It does not swirl around my legs
but parts and leaves a path in my wake.
Beneath the solid cloud unseen
winter grass crackles.
Black birdseed tossed to the ground
skitters and disappears.
Returning to the house I find
the bottom porch stair
where I slip and nearly fall.
Hidden ice.
Hidden eighteen years ago
when I visited you in Amsterdam.
We planned my move to you,
our move to winter on the North Sea.
Fog hid the crystalled sand
that crunched beneath our feet.
You hid two women from each other,
living two lives that couldn’t help but overlap –
fog over grass, fog over sand –
until she knew, then I knew.
This morning, sun rising to heat
the cold earth: fog lifts, ice melts.
– Jane
My baby was ten days old when they took me away. The cops muttered “Crazy” when they found me standing barefoot on the hot black asphalt, nothing but a towel wrapped around my 200 pounds.
The neighbors had heard me screaming at my husband, but they were too afraid to make the call. They didn’t want me keying their car again or threatening to burn down their house.
You were scared of me too. I saw it on your lousy poker face. You had to wonder how fast you could run after you confessed that my baby boy had been taken from my house. You had to cringe when I learned you’re the reason I have to stay sober, stay clean, stay on the meds I hate because they dull my day, tarnishing the silver jet streams in my head.
You didn’t know what I would say, but you’ve heard me swear and threaten; you’ve seen me put my fist through a wall and kick down a door. But you stood there, and you told me the police took my baby because his crazy parents couldn’t take care of him yet.
I raised my hand. You flinched. I reached in – and hugged you, and I said, “Thank you.”
So this is what happens: a woman buys a wedding card she really likes for her nephew and his new wife, and while she’s at it she finds a funny birthday card for him. She puts them in her lunchcase – (that’s a briefcase/lunch bag combo) – for safe keeping.
She could mail the envelopes, but she’s looking forward to tucking them in the gift card basket at the wedding reception.
As fate would have it, she catches – not a bus, not a man, and certainly not the bouquet, but – a dreadful virus that throws her under a bus, causing her to miss the big bash. Meanwhile, the cards ride around in the aforementioned bag, forgotten in a feverish haze, and as might be expected they get lunched upon (specifically, doused with raspberry-flavor green tea) and cased upon (by a thick file or two).
Frankly, she should toss the cards in the recycle bin and start over, but oh she did so like them when she chose them.
At the risk of making her dear nephew’s new wife worry at the psychiatric health of the family she’s married into (he learned a long time ago worrying is wasted on the wacky), the aunt tucks all her good intentions into one large envelope, seals it with a kiss, and sends it with her love – my love – to Matt and Kerri. – Aunt Jane
buffaloed 