When I put a quarter in the
table-top jukebox
for three songs by John
Denver, Darrell calls me
a wuss and dares me to try a
bite of the breakfast
special, calf brains and eggs.
I tell him that, unlike
some people I know, I don’t
need to order brains
from a diner—which I can get
away with
because he long ago tired of
pounding on me,
and anyway I’m paying for the
food, and the cigarettes
from the machine, and for
wherever we might
decide to go where there might
be girls to see us
smoke. Last week when I told
him I thought
I wanted to be a poet, he
looked at me the way
my father did when I told him
I was leaning
Democrat, or like my mother
when I came out
atheist—just keep praying to lord Jesus, dear—
I could see my words zipping
through Darrel’s
head like a hummingbird had
come in through a tear
in the screen door and really
wanted out now,
but in the end it was enough for him to blow smoke
in my face, make me swear to
god I still liked girls.First published in Pembroke Magazine
