Joelene 2

Summer came

like a skinny hot girl on sandy legs.

Pale skin with red pebbles

on two slender cheekbones.

I always did like summer, you see

but I loved it especially then.

When I was the most

attractive I’d ever been.

So, I was a woman now.

So Mamaw claimed.

But I still had to do the dishes,

still had to take the cows out

to get the sun.

And I most definitely loved the sun,

but that summer it came hot

and went quickly cold.

That summer,

it got hidden by a sandy cowboy hat,

a lopsided grin that aged like Papaw’s rice wine,

and eyes with lines of years-old lies.

But let’s not jump the gun, yes?

This is how it went:

So, I laid on my favorite board bench

with the failing feet,

and I kind of felt like Brooke Sheilds

or Anne Hathaway as I laid in the seat,

with the shades I’d bought

at the downtown tavern,

propped up like a pinup

on the bride of my nose.

And I wore my red bathing suit

with the flares at the edges.

Then the gate squeaked

like a mouse in a trap.

And the trap was back.

My heart, my tummy told me first, you see.

And I'd almost bolted to the house,

but I put my shades in my lap.

And Eric looked different

as he came through the gates,

and I swore I smell the man

before I saw him.

Weed. Cigarettes,

sweat and August breeze.

And if you could see him now,

you’d again see why,

I’d let him fool me all those while.

And he wore this time a cowboy hat,

big boots covering the hem of his khaki pants.

His eyes were squinted from the sunny glow,

And his nose was still an arrow,

And those lips, the reason for my before-sorrow,

were red like the cherries back in our meadow.

He tore through the blinding morning sun

like a merciless cataract.

Not a hurricane this time,

but a big, cloudy cataract.

Now do you see why I said,

the man came to hid the sun?

And he pulled off his hat,

pressed it against his chest,

like a man back from the army.

But Eric hadn’t left to do anything great.

He hadn’t left to save lives

but just to take mine.

Then now came all the forgotten times:

That merciless kiss

and then the first cruel blood-shed.

I'd had to throw those white sheets away

just after stripping them off my sinful bed.

And he did bomb up a whole soul, here.

Now he was back to ensure: no survivors, I fear.

My eyes squinted in the paling light,

summer’s premature departure,

and he leaned down to place his carry-on

on the pavement.

Eric couldn't be standing here.

There was no way, no...

My mouth was ajar,

as he grinned wide from afar.

“Joelene.”

I sat upright slowly,

and I hadn’t forgotten

how he’d left me on that morning

just after for the tenth time

he’d taken my purity.

But wait...

Is that…

there was somebody else

Yes, ‘tis was, wasn’t it?

Right by his side...