bribes are good for the economy

She awoke with a pain
in her swollen left arm
on that Sunday in November—
thankfully she’d been to church
the night before but lying
in bed against the hard twine edge
God remained deafer than a
postman asked to step off the grass
and away from burning
bushes. Clusters of tulips sans
petal thrusting virility into
virgin September weekends.

Monday.
The kids went to school,
appropriately dressed
lunchboxes. At home,
ice cream dreams and
soap opera laundry pierced
by timid solo missions
to the psychiatrist.

The quotidian rumbling
of freight trains
is calling memories of
her father facedown in
war mud—
her father with large hands precise
as cogs in bank vaults.
Deposits of secrecy stayed
in her bones until it meandered
to her tear ducts at his
funeral. She was keenest on him,
knowing how his wife could
be moodier than he. They slept
early and set out at dawn westward
on noiseless auto routes.

Dusk, eating little saltines. In
nights dark and blind in bed
they bickered and she jockeyed
for spare inches away from his
rough machinist hands.