We rock twin rockers out on the porch.
The gray wind fills with rain.
“Hail predicted,” you mutter.
You have lost at lust again,
This time with a junior in college
The age of your daughter.
You fake youth with a tan
And camouflaged hair.
“Nature calls,” you announce, springing up.
You fantasize our childhood
Fingering blossoms
Of an African violet
While stuck to the toilet.
Your Birkenstocks smell.
I ask you to dinner.
You nod. The spark leaves your eyes
Converting me from crush to old maid.
After minestrone soup
I serve hot lasagna with wine.
You gulp merlot and noodles.
I gulp too, killing that first bottle
And scraping foil off the second.
Purple-blue veins feed
Your muscles and brain.
The promised hail comes,
A riot on my roof.
Kirby Wright won the 2018 Redwood Empire Mensa Award for Creative Nonfiction. He’s working on a collection of poems tentatively titled Lasagna With the Professor.
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