Tehama County
At the Chevron past the county line road,
three miles from the house in dispute
the coleus desiccated, the entire lawn
dying,
Ryan throws bleach in the bathrooms before the morning shift.
Families stream in,
litters of children with centipede feet
the cash only unincorporated county type,
in search of Red Hots or Chili Dogs or Cherry Coke.
I want something different from what they want.
Soon I will start my car and complete the final three miles.
For now, this is the only way I can live.
There is tremendous power
in the coming and going of it.
Thirteen miles added to the odometer on the way there
sixteen on the way back
inexplicably
or so I told Gil
at the time
my husband
who nearly killed me
although he waited until the summer
after the house was sold
after he tracked the odometer readings in a spreadsheet.
He was like this.
I left.
Some years later I called Ryan from a city in another state where nobody drives. You can go everywhere here, I said, but there are still days when you can’t get far.
M7
A good camera
not a Nikon
I bought it on the last day of vacation
after a long line and an argument with my brother.
The instructions are in German
I am in Tulsa
and they almost make sense.
The good camera, it waited in a hall closet
on a hanger
under a white coat
where not even the yoga mats live
in the space of all things unloved.
If I will be ok after this,
please keep it a secret.
We didn’t take pictures of our father
pixelated mementos
full of phenobarbital and fever and spacial distortion.
He would have known what
we were up to. A long illness that outlived the Lieca warranty.
There are only outtakes. We are born first,
(nature makes it easy, you know)
the wrong woman, pushing us out and into the arms of the wrong woman
all of us,
or the wrong man.
He had wishes. Probably
all of us had wishes.
Easter Sunday
Bobby and I are at the Buckhorn
drinking PBR and MGD
I worry about Gruyere melting in my trunk
My husband doesn’t eat anything but.
Bobby and I are here to work something out
maybe two things
and my children Aileen Adam
are at the Sunday morning service.
A guy across the bar yells
what do you tell a girl with two black eyes?
nobody looks up
nothing, you’ve told her twice.
Above the Cools and Winstons, even taxidermy fails us
and the stag head just sort of smirks. These days
everybody wants a new joke
I worry about absurdity, about the rest of this afternoon and the coming week,
about how Pabst doesn’t go with Gruyere, about bad jokes, and about this bar.
What’s the difference between a million bucks and a dead hooker, the same guy says.
I don’t have a million bucks in my garage.
This gets more laughs. The beer is making Bobby miserable, or the air in the bar, or something
I worry for the Gruyere in my trunk.
In the end I leave
we all have sacrifices to make.