« Kim Chinquee »
Pushing It
He said he had a puppy. He'd already talked about his kids. Four of them, and now he said sorry if he hurt her, putting on the tape. He said, You used to be? He'd read her book, the copy she'd left and she said she wasn't, and then he looked for an IV pole. We didn't expect IVs, he said, hanging the bag from a nail where a clock used to be. She was left alone there, and she clung to his last words: his vacation to Alaska, where he went to see a newborn. She felt glum looking at the calendar, wondering why she went so long. She'd known him for a while now. He came back and gave her a list. He spoke of symptoms and she told him it was too late. He told her to keep the pills. He shook her hand five times. He gave her his card. She said to him: Oh my, and then she felt a rush, and then it was thank you. He said to her you're welcome. He was just a guy, and she said hi. He smiled. He laughed. Did he wink?
She Could Play
She went to all the hotspots, making it familiar. One place was famous for burritos, another hung, leaving nothing empty. Wings were everywhere. Statues of buffalo. Her new place was suddenly historic, and she woke up opening windows, her Hollywood curtains. One place had pudding, and she ate, licking. She bought a bike and weaved. She wore a helmet and went fast for the detours. Losing her way, but you're never lost. She found a lake that really wasn't. People ran and beeped. She hadn't lived and her husband was elsewhere, and so was her last one and the other, her father with bars. She grew up with cows and land and prayers and she stops at a red for permission.
We Once Stood Soundless
We donned hats and mittens, earmuffs. Our parents only wore coats. My sister and I followed, across the pasture, down the lane, and to the neighbors' farm lot. We didn't talk, and our father went to look at cattle, our mother gathered with the housewives, and my sister and I stood. There were tractors all lined up, and a vendor selling hot dogs. There were hay bales, mounds of straw, and the auctioneer, he was all machine-like, selling off the items: the combine and the spreader, bikes and saws and some things were rusty. He sold a cello to a fellow. The voice, it had no alternating volume, it was like the drinking of hot chocolate without hotness lacking chocolate. Later on at home, our dad went to do the milking, our mother with the house chores, and my sister and I skated on the patch that was a garden in spring. We did loops. We spun around. We sang. She fit into the old skates and I got to wear the new ones. She tripped on a patch where there used to be peppers. She fell, like an angel.