"How Inland Living Operates"
You bickered for a year over how to split the house.
The hurricane took the whole thing in June. How
embarrassing. Somewhere West, a farmhand
with a combine harvester shreds up relics
of your affair. Earnest letters
from the early stage. The pressed gardenia she left
in your briefcase. A receipt from the dinner
where your wife’s cousin finally caught you.
The smell of lobster still sends swells up through your blood.
Nothing makes the farmhand flush. Not the harsh sun.
Not the tiny barbs of corn leaf that would prickle city skin.
He carves an easy path through the green, pretends
he’s coasting his Cadillac down Main Street.
He’s on his way to meet a blonde for dinner. They’ll order lobster.
He holds a hard line, even as he loops a signature
in his mind, practice for when the check arrives.
If you met him, you would you grab his tan shoulders
and bark, Son, don’t write your name on anything.
Burn every receipt. And remember that the greatest seafood spots
are also prone to heavy weather.
© 2007 Graeme Mullen
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