PARKING LOT, GREENSBORO, NC
In the middle of a beer and shot crowd two guys dulled out
by their work begin to argue at bar time on a rainy night,
their hair matted with the rain, shirt collars soaked through,
bumping chests, glaring and jabbing fingers at each other
while a drunken crowd begins to ring them, and the fact
that neither man recalls what the argument was about
matters less than the shine of rain on the parked cars
or the groan of gears from the semi on the off ramp
because they’ve gone too far and people are watching and
neither wants to back down, and they clench fists and feel
something is happening like momentum or fate and
some people are trying to light cigarettes in the rain
and others have drinks they’ve carried out of the bar and
one guy runs to his truck for a six pack and these
people want to see a fight now, and suddenly the
taller man takes a wild swing but doesn’t connect,
and they lock up like TV wrestlers and push
each other around for awhile, but they’re both drunk
and tired and it breaks up, not much of a fight at all
and everyone drives home disappointed and scary drunk
and the one I know gets up late the next day, grins
in the mirror at the red and purple bruise on his face
before he showers, shaves, and drags his sorry ass to work.
¤ ¤ ¤
BLACK HORSE GALLOPING
When he woke it felt all wrong.
wind having its way with trees,
sun on the wrong side of the sky,
clouds the color of smoke.
Drinking in the morning, he thought,
makes for a short day.
On the dresser her brush
and earrings beneath
a still life he didn’t like.
He’d fallen asleep on her
side of the bed, adrift in her scent.
Before she left for work she
asked him to leave.
Years before out for a walk they
first heard, then saw a black
horse galloping full speed down
an empty street at midnight. It had
escaped from a horse show
a mile or so away. What he
remembered most was not the
sound of hooves on pavement
or the wild eyes of the horse, but her
moving closer and grabbing his
upper arm in her hands.
He could still feel the pressure of her
fingers and hear her breath quicken,
her hip pressed against his.
That was two cities and three jobs ago.
He watched the conspiracy of wind and clouds
drain light from the sky while he began to pack.
¤ ¤ ¤
YARD SALE
Not much left here,
pots, pans, mismatched plates,
cracked cups, blender and golf clubs.
I wind my way between
an old lawn mower,
broken recliner, toaster oven
and just like new ab-roller.
Among these people and the
unwanted debris of their lives
are things bought with certainty
then forsaken to make space or peace.
Or maybe to forget another life
lived in a different place.
I find a box of books
with a Norton Anthology
of English lit and a novel
by Irving Shaw, (The Young Lions,
I remember Brando blonde
in the film version playing
the good German.)
Then I see the shoes, size
nine wing tips, almost new.
A size twelve and his wife charge
me five bucks for shoes and books.
The pear tree in their yard
is so heavy with fruit a
branch has broken. Take
as many as you like the wife
says, so I load up. Later,
I relax on my suburban deck,
novel open in my lap and half way
through a barely bruised pear
breaking in a dead man’s shoes.
