My Grandmother's Breasts
Dinner Plans
Rounding the Corner
The New Normal
What Could Have Been
One of her last mornings
before that newfangled virus
disrupted her plans to seal
the rest of the tomatoes under lids
like brassy little shields,
already a hitch in her laughter,
she forgot to latch the door
though half-asleep she
did not see how promptly
I backed out and closed the door
on she who bathed
and changed me, nursed
my mother and hardly seemed
to notice that time she was
cradling a wounded
infant and he shoved his
small angry fist right down
her flowered dress
and left it there the whole
time that gameshow wheel spun
and meek strangers applauded
their chance at a better life.
All my friends are getting shots
to toughen up their lungs,
talk of drinks once the world reopens
like a clamshell full of confetti,
and I remember that note I found
years ago penned by a boy
to his father, asking the latter
to please come visit and promising
that if he did, the son would
provide him with heaps of crab legs
steamed in butter and garlic,
maybe a porterhouse crusted with spice
and banana cream pie to follow,
the slices thick as bricks,
the dishes of no consequence.
He’d been practicing, the note said,
even snagged a job in a kitchen
and now all he wanted to do
was cook his absent father
some real good shit—a slight
wobble in the letters like the boy
wasn’t sure he should swear
but did it anyway. God, the things
we risk for love, vows that end
up between the legs of a barstool
amidst stains and spilled glass,
crumpled like a wet fist.
It seemed impossible at first,
your body no taller than a rifle
and soft as whatever they sell
in jars next to baby powder,
that just the passing tissue
of your shadow could
whittle the edge off walls,
hallways, whole city blocks,
though they warned you
more than nails or doorjambs
or even loud rushing traffic
to avoid the touch of strangers—
even when they’re smiling,
parts of them already bruised.
Now the vaccine bruises are fading
and my paycheck has all but recovered
from a two-year string of funerals,
fresh flowers in the windows
of restaurants opening like barns
with so many horses wandering in,
so much prayer replaced by cash
and smiles and even sex blossoming
from the overclean wreckage that
it’s easy to ignore that special kind
of thunder that comes without clouds
and ends with chalk, yellow tape,
phones ringing in the pockets
of mouths that will never answer.
One bland May, I took the bus
to meet up with an ex on the far side
of our oven-shaped state.
When we pulled into a truck stop,
a few checkered tables within
spitting distance of a lone diesel pump
near a clutch of honeysuckles,
the driver didn’t bother telling us
we’d only be staying as long
as it took him to do what’s necessary.
So I went in and to make
a short tale shorter, sometimes
I imagine the lack of a head-count
meant all I could do is start over
at that knuckle-sized diner
with better-than-average burgers,
a sign in the window, and a waitress
who managed to touch my arm
every single time we spoke.
Michael Meyerhofer's fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press. He has been the recipient of the James Wright Poetry Award, the Liam Rector First Book Award, the Brick Road Poetry Book Prize, and other honors. His work has appeared in Southern Review, Ploughshares, Rattle, Hayden's Ferry, Gargoyle Magazine, River Styx, Missouri Review, and other journals. He is also the author of a fantasy series and the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. For more information and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit www.troublewithhammers.com.
