Tehachapi Seven
Eleven
Wedged
between the customers and the Marlboros,
I’m
stationed at the register,
cans
of Red Man, Copenhagen, Durango, and Rooster, a scrim behind me.
Salt-sweet
jerky sticks stuffed in a cookie jar,
cash
in the drawer, lottery tickets draped like flags of fictitious countries.
Scratch
and win.
Outside,
in the heat, the pumps line-up, white and blue,
black
hoses, akimbo.
A
gallon of gas costs an hour’s pay.
You
can wash your car,if you want.
Or
drive off, dusty.
Thursday’s
my day-off.
I
get up and get dressed.
The
sun rises like a slow yawn.
There’s
a note still on the kitchen table.
It’s
in her handwriting:
Go
fishing, it says.
Drain
the lake to catch the fish.
The
house is empty now.
She
took both the kids. Neither of them was
mine.
I
wasn’t the first one to notice her 17 year-old,
sorry
and pretty as a freshly painted bungalow,
little
smudge of a smile.
The
kind that runs toward trouble, not away.
I
think about her.
It
used to bother me, but not anymore.
You
get used to it.
Force
acting on an object,
speed
of light the same for everyone,
gravity
pulling everything down,
rod
and reel,
lure
and bait.
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