LEAVING BOISSEVAIN
I like how I smell when I wear cool blue deodorant
lying in bed listening to girls with guitars rocking
this way rocking that way where was she last night
counting the tips at the end of her shift she was
listening to girls with guitars dishing the blues
Because there may be no tomorrow, or so my mother,
Susann with two ns, would say until the very day
I lay beside her and listened to her die she might have listened
to Patsy Cline when her man wasn’t at home but she would
never be out walking after midnight or writing letters
to old boyfriends who died in uniform which her man Frank
conscientiously refused to wear; preaching love
in Lena and Boissevain, taking prescription
amphetamines to keep awake driving home in the dark.
Published by Grain, Summer 2021.