It’s Taco Tuesday and Hotel California
is playing from the speakers of
the Mexican fast food place
where I have ordered twelve hard
shell, twelve soft,
ninety-nine cents each.
And when they arrive in two bags
the girl is irritated because I am
counting them.
She creases her brow, fingers the
cuff of her company shirt,
so I say, I know they’re all here as I continue to count.
She stares at me, so I say, If I leave without counting . . .
And now she smiles. Because she
knows.
The next morning I pass the gift
shop at the airport.
Its racks of candies and chips
glitter like ornaments on
Christmas trees.
I look away, check my boarding
pass,
then find myself standing before
the rack
of dark chocolate-covered acai and
blueberries
(Something says Acai is good for you)
and milk-chocolate malt balls
(Something says Summertime)
and bite-sized Butterfinger bits
(Something says Don’t buy that shit)
I watch my hand reach for the bag
of Butterfingers,
cradle it as if to count them. The
heft of it pleases me.
And then I hear what seems to be the
crunch of gravel
under a car tire, muted voices
muttering something
I can’t make out. I am not sure
where I am.
That night I sit on my bed as
sweet fingers
lift to my lips one Butterfinger
after another
middle finger raised in salute
to every brow hoisting its creased
flag of concern.
It’s as if I’m drinking again,
the way my hands used to fill and
refill
the glass of wine, or the way my
lips
would order and reorder the
margarita with the salted rim.
And in the background the voices
and something about a dark desert
highway.
When the bag is empty, I either
sleep or pass out,
I’m not sure which.
I dream of a boy with a needle and
syringe.
He is shooting up in my house and
I have called 911.
I don’t know what else to do.
This poem appears in Golden Fish / Dark Pond and in Credo
Click here to order Golden Fish / Dark Pond
Credo will be available early 2018