I.
I hope you have lived long and well. I hope you never again fear a swerving car, head-
lights off like a box turtle’s neck protected inside an unwell shell. Skittering like a joke.
I hope you’ve survived breakups. Survived cancer. Died of something like old age or
a quiet pneumonia, family gathered in jewels and affluence. Has your only hardship been overdue
credit or a lost cat or a snow shovel bent nearly in half from bitter, resentful black
ice sleeping under your Michelin tires? Or maybe a lukewarm purgatory at the DMV for a brand
new driver license for your prodigy of a son? A too-smart son for drinking. A too-smart son
my mother didn’t have, who may turn into a too-smart husband my wife didn’t have. Need I go on.
II.
Do you think of me, sometimes, at the liquor store, when you gaze at expensive wine, debate
Chardonnay or Merlot for the department soiree? The reds and whites gleaming at you not
as they did for me—an echoing siren’s call—but as a friendly wave, saying pick me, pick me?
I have always been chosen last. In Mr. Samson’s gym class, neither boys nor girls wanted me.
I can’t say I blame them. I always threw too hard or too soft. The ball knew I was afraid,
could feel my tensing too-small hands. I hope you know—though I know you’ve no way
of knowing this—that I don’t drink anymore. That I don’t even have a car. That I
surrendered my license willingly. I’m without a picture.
III.
I remember the screams of my ex-wife on 1-94 when she was not my ex-wife. On 1-95. 1-80.
Same sounds, different roads. The steering wheel fast and lucky. I could taste her heart palpitations
in my throat, hear her jaw set in my brain, which was already, of course, with the next sip
preoccupied. A meal of amber. Like Christ’s, but dimmer. Maybe some powder. When the divorce
papers came, I barely opened these hazy blue eyes that I must have tricked God into gifting
me. My pupils were not born glassy. I knew what those papers must be, and so I signed them.
I signed my life—I mean my wife—away on every dotted line. I agreed to child support
and alimony and her new husband. I bet she trims his beard now. Mine grows slowly.
Addendum
I still come in the shower, alone, water steaming and streaming down my thighs.
I still watch the news and vote and get to church on time. I shout those
hallelujahs until my throat is sore, until I feel my ears start screaming. I’m thrown
into memories of my first rock concert at fifteen, my date a neon-pink-haired
girl, my brow glinting with that ridiculous piercing. We took ourselves too seriously.
But that night we got lost and jumped and sacrificed pretention for adoration
of the lights and the beat and the thump of something brighter. I smelled beer
but wasn’t tempted. I danced and everyone was watching. I just wanted you to know.