So Fine
Teeth,
teeth like snow, wet in the light.
Haven't you heard it's bad luck to see someone
smile in the dark? Or hearing bells
underwater? Lights and music in a forest?
I fell asleep on the bus to Newburyport,
where I was going to have sex for money,
my backpack wedged between my shins,
my head on the shoulder of a woman
who looked like my aunt, lolling and bouncing
as the road rucked and thumped beneath us.
The bus slowed and stopped and I lurched forward,
awake. I got up, got off, no idea where I was.
A little town, brick main street, war memorial park,
a diner- my back hurt, my shoulders ached, my neck
throbbed from sleeping on a stranger's shoulder.
The bus drove by, chugging, black exhaust a hot cloud
around me, the woman who looked like my aunt
waving. I waved back, the bus made a right and drove on.
The diner was almost empty, and three old men at the counter
looked up as I came in, gave me the once over, and went back
to talking about the government.
I sat at at table by the window and ordered coffee and drank it,
spending my last $5 and asking the waitress if I could wash dishes
or clean the storeroom for her, and so for the next six hours I worked
in the diner and talked to the old men who came and went and
waitress split her tips with me and as I was leaving I asked
Which way is Newburyport? and she pointed one way
and I walked the other.
(In a small room, she says, You're a good thing gone awry,
and instead of answering I kiss the outline of her mouth that I can see
vaguely in the darkness beside me, a small oval in the pale round of her face.
I feel her smile against my lips, and I pull away, shutting my eyes, because
I am nervous of happy things I cannot see. I roll over, her arms snake around me,
her breath on my back, her lips on the nape of my neck. I lie still, waiting
for my luck to change.)
Hours later, sore, standing in a scalding hot shower,
pink swirling down the drain,
I remind myself I need to call my aunt,
to say hello,
to say how, sweet lord, have you been?