by JS Gilbert
Like when your spine aligns with a guest-bed groove,
or you reach the dip you’d thought long lost, forever,
between the dunes of your shoulder blades, or you
dream of grandma and the walks to DQ cherry sundaes and
playing with fridge magnets on the floor and her
cigar box of fragmented Canary, Blue-Green, Green-Blue,
and Mango Tango, and farewelling, engulfing hugs against
her house-coated breasts before you fall into the cold
of the world.
Isn’t that a dream you’d share
with everyone?
My friend’s cousin’s name was Becky. She
lived in Ottumwa, wore sneakers and a ponytail.
Each summer she’d ride the year-end school bell
into town, radiating an aura of balloon
races and farrowing. Once, I think,
she touched my arm.
‘Cecelia’ reminds me of her, still. Not because
she broke my heart, but because I made her laugh.
Columbia House introduced me to Gerald Levert
in 1991, before methamphetamines replaced cassette
tapes as the drug of choice for nice, Iowa boys.
I couldn’t say no to the nice lady on the phone,
and to this day freeze in the face of the entire
service industry. Servers, cashiers, mechanics all
want to know where I want to do and suddenly I’m
that fox we passed on I-75 caught in a rictus
of terrified indecision, knowing that things have
drastically changed, things are bigger, things are
faster, and I do not understand except that they
expect an answer, a crossing, at their convenience.
