Water Vapor
written 7-18-04
Smiling and drying
her red, chapped hands on
a stiff, grimy apron,
she holds up the pot and asks,
“Any refills for ya’ll?”
It’s nearly one a.m., and her shift is nearly over. Goodbye to the truckers, the grease, the fryers and grills and sludgy, slimy plates. The bitter smell of burnt coffee and the putrid smell of grease cling to her slacks, her hair, even to her shoelaces.
The world
is an awful place,
but it’s worse when
you ain’t got nobody
to love.
Home means a late, uncomfortable bus ride from one bad part of town to another. It means walking in the door to find your life, your blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter asleep on an old recliner in front of an old television. She was never meant to be this dirty.
Rising up
through the foggy air,
through the thickness
of a life full of
humidity.
The jar waits in the medicine cabinet. It’s a weekly ritual; stare at the handful of blue and yellow and red pills, the Vicoden, the Lanthanum, the lone green cyanide capsule sticking out like her daughter’s blue eyes. A moment of grace, of beauty, in an ugly, ugly world.
To bed,
saline tears rolling
down her gaunt cheeks,
her defined jaw line.
“She was so pretty-
she could’ve gotten out.”
Smiling and drying
her red, chapped hands on
a stiff, grimy apron,
she holds up the pot and asks,
“Any refills for ya’ll?”
It’s nearly one a.m., and her shift is nearly over. Goodbye to the truckers, the grease, the fryers and grills and sludgy, slimy plates. The bitter smell of burnt coffee and the putrid smell of grease cling to her slacks, her hair, even to her shoelaces.
The world
is an awful place,
but it’s worse when
you ain’t got nobody
to love.
Home means a late, uncomfortable bus ride from one bad part of town to another. It means walking in the door to find your life, your blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter asleep on an old recliner in front of an old television. She was never meant to be this dirty.
Rising up
through the foggy air,
through the thickness
of a life full of
humidity.
The jar waits in the medicine cabinet. It’s a weekly ritual; stare at the handful of blue and yellow and red pills, the Vicoden, the Lanthanum, the lone green cyanide capsule sticking out like her daughter’s blue eyes. A moment of grace, of beauty, in an ugly, ugly world.
To bed,
saline tears rolling
down her gaunt cheeks,
her defined jaw line.
“She was so pretty-
she could’ve gotten out.”