Chrome and Oranges<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some days I drag what I have done
\nlike a sack of wet laundry,
\nthe more I lug the heavier it gets,
\nand if I don\u2019t tend to it, it sours.
\nTub of guts, we said as kids\u2014
\nit had nothing to do with towing,
\nstill this knowing attracts flies.
\nMight as well add envy to the pile,
\njealous as I am of those able to forget.
\nAnd while stench may be a trigger,
\nI cannot recall the name of the woman
\nat work who smelled like shower steam
\non powdered skin every morning for ten
\nglorious years. Instead, something I said
\nto J.B. forty years ago appears like a bull
\non the highway. It gives asphalt a lesson
\non black, leaves me replaying a stupid beef
\nover a woman who left both of us.
\nThe Christmas I was ten I rode my new bike
\nto Richard\u2019s to show off all that chrome.
\nHe showed me checkers and an orange.
\nThose handlebars rust at the bottom of the sack.
\nBad days, I hang each item on a line.
\nThey sag like wet squares of sheetrock.
\nFrom a distance, you might wonder how
\none man could own so many white shirts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Chrome and Oranges” previously appeared in the Massachusetts Review.<\/em><\/p>\n Kevin Miller<\/a> lives in Tacoma, WA. Pleasure Boat Studio <\/a>published his third collection,\u00a0<\/a>Home & Away: The Old Town Poems<\/a><\/em> in 2008. Miller taught in the public schools of Washington State for thirty-nine years. He received grants from Artist Trust and Tacoma Arts, and received the Bumbershoot\/Weyerhaeuser Publication Award for his first collection, Light That Whispers Morning.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chrome and Oranges Some days I drag what I have done like a sack of wet laundry, the more I lug the heavier it gets, and if I don\u2019t tend to it, it sours. Tub of guts, we said … Continue reading