by The Poet Darkling
He was nice
momma said
I had to talk to him
two days a week
and she would buy me ice cream after.
I saw him Tuesdays & Thursdays at one o’clock.
I saw him two days a week for two years.
My mother told him I was full of the devil
“She’s full of the devil!” she’d say.
“She won’t talk to me. Won’t tell me nothin’…
maybe you can do something with her,”
she’d say.
He was nice.
He had black caterpillar eyebrows
He smelled like Lake Michigan
he wore shiny brown shoes
Florsheim.
My uncle worked at Florsheim
on Pulaski & Belmont
he made shoes there
and he smelled
like raw leather and sour beer.
He drank his beer with salt.
His whiskers scratched my neck at night.
The doctor asked me about my uncle
he asked me and I told him,
“My uncle makes shoes. He probably made your shoes.”
One day, the doctor asked, “What else does your uncle do?”
and I said, “I can’t say.”
Then the doctor asked, “What can’t you say?”
and I said, “Can I go now?”
When we left,
I told momma what I couldn’t say,
“I don’t believe you,” and we took a bus home.
It dawned on me that night,
we never stopped for ice cream.
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing, SNHU Student