from “Anti-lamentation” by Dorianne Laux
Three miles to town. Hitching Saturday rides
to the 20th century Fox for the double feature, hoping
to sit with someone you know. Lee Marvin, Redford,
you’ve walked those streets a thousand times, and still
the old cowboys are the only ones you trust, stoic
and lonely as your 14-year-old heart. You’d ride off
with anyone bearing warm hands and a bottle. No surprise
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
pair of legs wrapped over you, not one cigarette ash
you had to blink away. Fucking the Marlboro boys,
hair singed and the first snort of cocaine, summer
of the wasted days, you wanted to know nothing
and succeeded, walking the roadside, left thumb high,
strategic signal of a wounded bird drawing danger
close. Behind you, little sandpipers cheeping
when the lights on the carnival rides
mashed neon into the backs of your eyelids.
Sleep a gift that birds tucked beneath a wing
but not you. Those big screen swaggers
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
from the ruined upholstery of the theater,
sucking Bacardi and Coke from a shared straw,
your hands in each other’s laps, exalted
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
