My Favorite Umbrella

First one eye and then the other.

She could stomach existence

In palatable increments of bittersick bullshit,

Slowly becoming sure that she was full of it.

 

The life inside sighs and divides

The lies from her bottomless pride.

Sitting in a delicatessen and learning a sad lesson:

There’s more to life than being good,

And substantially less can sustain happiness.

 

Facing the wall to cry unashamedly,

Quietly concerning herself with a stray lock of hair

That had escaped and hung frozen in mid-air,

Wondering how to fix herself

To work better in a world broken.

Streamlined towards heartlessness

And doused in 100-proof liquor,

Considering her cigarette only recently lit

Put out calmly in her quaking shaking open palm:

Waiting to catch fire and burn smoke-lessly away.

Something passionate to envelop the pain,

Where perhaps a few faintly saintly thoughts could remain.

 

She gritted her teeth and smiled wide,

Keeping her head down so her eyes could hide,

She left the store and walked under the cloud-kept stars,

Making her wary weaving way towards the bars.

 

Outside the rain had filled the streets

Like church bells singing where celebration and mourning meet.

A woman wilted on the corner of Johnson and State,

Water running red down her face and falling to her feet.

Only by some cruel miracle did she stand willingly.

 

A man with a mischievous smile peered around the corner,

Determined to become the celebration for the mourner.

He sidled up politely, cleared his throat noisily.

She looked up and he froze instantly, immediately recollecting.

The school slut.  Everybody had fucked her,

And he’d gotten her drunk and in the back of his car.

He’d written “whore” all over her notebooks in Poly Sci,

Fairly sure she’d break down and cry

And his worthless friends would laugh it on by.

He wordlessly handed over his umbrella and his smile,

Then ducked into a store alcove to weep for awhile.

 

She crossed the street, deciding she was, indeed, hungry.

The street brightened by the absence of rain

And the arrival of the day washed the rowdy folk away,

Bringing weary workmen in massive hosts

To hoist their tools and man their posts.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”> 

He smoked a thin cigar outside of the brightly dimming deli lights,

Eyes closed, waiting for his fingers to burn as bright.

A voice, female, asked him for the time.

He said, “You’re too late, I’m taken.”

Imperiously: “Seriously…”

“Half-past the ass-crack of dawn.”

“Wow.  Someone should tell the sun to put his pants back on.”

 

He laughed.  She laughed a little more.

Could he have been on any dumber?

She wanted to give him her number

And talk to someone who might love a whore.

 

He kept his eyes closed.

He flicked his cigar through the humid air

Where it almost landed in the redhead’s hair.

“Careful, careful there.  I’m soaked in 100-proof liquor,

And it might just be my turn to burn.”

“Haven’t you ever heard,” he purred?

“The best way to go is timber to cinder,

Milling crowd to ashen cloud.”

He opened his eyes to take in the speaker,

As small as a large mouse and meeker,

She’d have been bold (and lying)

To claim she didn’t do all she could

To keep from crying.

He smiled, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

The tears that finally broke from her eyes ran bright red.

“We’ve all bled a billion times,

Pal, and cried away hours of our lives,

But always remember:

The mourning is okay because

The laughter almost always comes after.

And perhaps…just maybe…

Today isn’t a disaster.”

 

“By the way, I’ve changed, I’m a good fella…

I gave away my favorite umbrella.”