in the lurid light

                              

She applies war paint to her face and adjusts

her do-rag in front of a middle-aged man in a Crown Vic,

takes off her kid boxing gloves, walks toward no place to go,

resigns herself to not a whole lot.

It’s not really where she wants to be,

but she knows it’s where she has to be.

 

She’s gone from fly girl to goodbye girl

in a matter of minutes.

 

Her tummy’s upset.

 

Her mouth is dry.

 

No food in the cupboard.

 

No fridge in the kitchen.

 

She walks to the cafeteria,

where all the left-overs are served,

orders liver and onions and asks for extra rice,

but the lady behind the counter says,

“That’s 75 cents extra.”

 

“Oh well,” she says, “No extra rice today.

 

She sits down in the corner, near the cobwebs,

feels faint, for some reason, maybe cuz of her

high blood pressure and diuretic meds.

Maybe cuz of nothin’ in particular.

 

She’s the kiss of purgatory and has been seen

in public on busses, on trains,

(cuz she can’t even get a damn car from the salvation army,

the Kidney Foundation or the Goodwill).

 

Some days she sits in church,

ashamed to admit she doesn’t speak in tongues,

watches the pastor through binoculars and prays

for her lesbian sister and crackhead cousin,

who went to Princeton for a couple of semesters.

 

“Life is precious,” she confesses to the pastor

during a more-than-vulnerable moment,

but the pastor doesn’t respond to her because

he doesn’t have his hearing aid in and

she winds up feeling snubbed and rubbed

the wrong way and is just about to curse the pastor

out when he suddenly drops dead of a massive coronary.

 

Wow, she thinks, God’s got issues.

No angels singing, no bolts of lightning,

no light at the end of the tunnel.

Things happen for a reason, she reasons,

the reason may be a test;

for which there is no time to study,

no bell curve, no retakes and no passing grade.