Tuesday, July 9, 2019

From the Rocks

There was just a way
The wheels
Crunched on the gravel

Door two oh two
Even though the motel
Only has sixteen rooms

Always something
A little off

I meet him in there
And he tells me
About his girl

Blonde hair
That falls in front of his face
And a birthmark
On his left shoulder
Color of a blueberry
Shape of a peach

He waits for me
With the door unlocked
Water running the bathroom
Because he likes to brush his teeth
Before we…

Asks me about my kids
Asks me about how things are
At the hardware store
Asks me if I’ve been--

No, I say, You’re still it

I take my wedding ring off
And put it in my right front pocket
With the wallet

We do what we do
And when it’s all over
He takes a nap
Before he drives home

Next door men are coming and going
In some room
Where it sounds like a woman
Is singing the saddest song of her life

It’s not until I get back to my car
That I reach for the ring in my pocket
And realize it isn’t there

I break the oldest unspoken rule we have
And go back to the room
To wake him up

When I tell him what I’m looking for
He dispenses with the lecture
And gets down on all fours
To help me find the ring
In the carpet

It must have fallen
When I took out my wallet
To get you that twenty bucks

It was for the pizza he ordered
Not for…

We like to eat sometimes
Before we get to business
Because sometimes we’re coming
Right from work or the road
And…

And I need my ring

We don’t find it in the carpet
Or on the stairs heading down to the parking lot
Or on the way back to the car

I cut my fingers open
Digging through the gravel

By now it was dusk
And I couldn’t see well enough
To tell the difference
Between rocks
And a ring

I start sweating through my shirt
And he kneels down next to me
Tells me he’ll keep looking
And when he finds it
He’ll drop it off to that woman
At the front desk
And have her--

Shut up, okay?
Just shut the fuck up!

He gets up quietly
And heads back to the room

He’s never heard me yell before
He’s barely ever heard me talk
Aside from small talk

Part of me wants to get on the road
And never stop going

How can I go home?
How can I face the woman
The one I’m married to
The one I committed myself to
The one who told me a long time ago

I know who you are
And I don’t care
But don’t you ever make a fool
Out of me

I pull into my own driveway
And without thinking
I look down
As if the ring would be there
Staring up at me

When I walk in the house
She’s on the couch
Finishing up the dinner
I told her to eat without me

I tell her that I lost my ring at work
When I washed my hands in the bathroom
And somebody must have picked it up
To pawn it or something

All she says is--

Oh, I lost mine about a month ago
Kept meaning to tell you
I’ve been wearing the ring
My grandmother left me instead

Seemed foolish to make you
Buy me a new one

Strangest thing

I never even

Noticed

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