She was a tough woman.
I reckon she ate nails for breakfast.
She didn't so much run her fingers through my hair
as clear a path.
She drove a truck
and her left breast bore a tattoo of the devil.
Try as I might, I could only state that,
not break it down into poetry.
I still refuse to change a tire.
I hate the smell of gasoline
and the thought of someone
sketching with a needle on my upper arm.
But I was loose at the time
and not always going in my own direction.
I hung around like fruit on a tree.
Marge was hungry enough to pluck anything.
Of course, eventually she dropped me
like a hitchhiker, married some guy on his way to prison.
I've avoided women with grease
under their fingernails ever since.
Still, she could be sweet, even kind,
when no one was looking.
Many the hurt dog at the side of the road
found its way into her healing arms.
But I was never the suffering canine
nor the one who could give as good as he got from her.
Sometimes different kinds of people
come together and they make it work.
But other times the vehicle breaks down on a highway some place.
It's often just the one who can get it going again.
--
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and California Quarterly.