no idea why
barely dusk
there’s a car pull up
alongside – 4 inside
2 in front
2 in back
I get in
sit between
the 2 in back
no idea in my
head why
I’d do this
except it was
better than
nothing
again
and it was
a small town
where nothing
bad happens
unless you
read in the paper
how a classmate
overdosed
a couple laps of
West Main
North Broad
loop
his left
hand rubbing
the right thigh
of a girl
he’d never
met
and I thought
he was drunk
or high
“you look
just like her
he said seconds
before breaking
down
I thought I knew
who he might
be
then and
no idea in
my head
why, I freaked
asked to get
out of the car
the car drove
away, him
crumpled in
the back seat
me thinking
I should have
helped
somehow
and thinking
I didn’t look
anything
like her.
hymn sing hangovers
worst of it wasn’t
not knowing
how I got home
alive
tiptoeing down
the hall
to pee in the dark
bed spins
queasy
dehydrated
church class
church service
hymn sing
hangovers
the boy
who groused
my tithe check
wasn’t 10%
yet discounted
his own
improbity
the very worst
of
it
all
was waiting
forever
on an undialed
phone call
secret government testing
was a time
growing up when
I refused to eat red food
for no reason but for
the color
not red candy
though, candy
color had its own
hierarchy
red M&M’s
for example
(before the introduction
of blue M&M’s)
was picked first
was fought over
dickered for
lusted after
then orange
brown yellow
and green
the slick orbs were
sucked on one at a
time until the outer shell
dissolved and yes, they all
tasted the same
I knew this
everyone knew this
there was no
secret psychological
government testing
going on behind secret
government laboratory doors
even though
it was the ‘60s
eating M&M’s
starting with red
and finishing with green
was normal behavior
but my husband
he rips the package open
loads his pie-hole
indiscriminate
the colors all mixed
in acid dream chaos
Wanda Morrow Clevenger is the author of This Same Small Town in Each of Us.
