By George Perreault

 

Sure, I raised it up there in the south pasture, that sign

how love will break the hardest heart, an it weren’t a week,

six days, since my boy Jacob drove hisself head-first

into that railroad bridge over toward Fort Sumner.

An I put it up where that little bitch would see it

ever time she drove from Elida or slipped in through Bethel.

Ain’t no way she could miss it, comin north or west either,

kitty-corner like it is an facin both roads, an it’d be

in the rearview headin back, if’n she ever looked back, like

maybe she does now, thinkin what’s come her way.

 

Lord, that poor boy – well, no, I guess he warn’t a

boy no longer, was he?  Not after what he went through

over in the desert – all them kids, cuz they weren’t no more’n

kids, mosta them, least when they got shipped out, an they

sure as shit weren’t kids coming back.  Not men neither, I spoze,

not whole men anyways, their folks tellin how they’d

wake up screamin, then drinkin an shakin in the sunlight

over what they seen, and, dear Lord, what they had to do.

Hardly one of ‘em aright after that, not completely.

Well, the Parish boy, he don’t seem no different, but then

he was, what, 12, 13, that day he walked in on his momma

doin it with the football coach, his daddy off buildin fence?

Hard to be right after something like that, but the desert,

the desert didn’t seem to bend him much.

 

Acourse the old days, that’s who you sent, folks that needed

a place to be or the ones done somethin pretty bad,

an the judge’d say Army or jail, son?  An if they was

young enough, they’d give the service a shot.

That ball player, the one over Portales – that Joey Moyer? –

oh, Lord, he was some player, wasn’t he?  An he did okay

when he had license to hit folks, just when the season’s done…

you recall how he beat that other feller near to death?

 

An that was his momma too, you know, bringin a different

uncle home ever night from the bar, an Joey sleepin

out in his truck or in the laundromat if it got too cold.

That was earlier, acourse, Viet Nam, but war is war an I guess

he had his fill of it after a couple tours.   Kinda straightened out

when he got back.  Well, he got real quiet, maybe scary quiet,

but still, he ain’t been any major trouble, far as I know.

 

Boys like my Jacob, though, it was a real rough patch, an then

he come home to that little tramp, hearin bout everbody she done

while he was over there gettin his ass shot at, an then the way

she put his face in it somethin awful…wonder he didn’t kill her instead.

He’d just sit up nights long as he could, fightin sleep, tryin to

write them songs as if they’d see him through.  Seems like

in the quiet now, cattle all asleep, I still hear that mournful tune:

                     She’s out all night just running round

                     what used to be, dammit, my home town. 

 

Well, Dermot, the state cop, he wrote it like an accident,

sand on the road an Jacob skiddin off, but, hell,

that’s how mosta them do for a local, you know, just to help

with the insurance an all, but Jake he was clockin 80 an sure as shit

that’s what he meant to do.  An he ain’t the only one, you know that.

Up Alaska, they’d just crawl out on the ice.

 

Speakin of, she’s got a cold ride now, her own self.

But her poor little girl, you sure hate seein someone go through that.

Anyone, really, but a kid…it’s just pitiful.  Saw them over to the

Town an Country t’other day…. You could count her bones an her

skin all white an waxy, big ol’ eyes starin like some soldier

just shipped home.  An there’s no doubt she loves her baby,

bitch that she is, an I’ve wondered – does she study upon that sign,

her own heart broken to bits, like maybe I put a curse on her?

Well, I surely would’ve, you know I would, but not like that.

Lordy, Lordy, I’d never do her like that.

 

George Perreault has a new collection of poetry, Bodark County, featuring poems in the voices of characters living on the Llano Estacado due out Fall 2016 from Grayson Books.  He has previously published three books of poetry, including All the Verbs for Knowing (Black Rock Press).  He has received a fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council and an award from the Washington Poets Association, and has served as a visiting writer in New Mexico, Montana, and Utah.  His poems have been selected for nine anthologies and dozens of magazines; recent work can be found in High Desert Journal, Wildcat Review, Literature Today, Twisted Vine, and Sleet.