Not Exactly What You Had in Mind
Imagine you speed home to find God
sprawled across your chaise lounge,
her feet lapping over
the soles of plastic sandals,
her bare legs smudged with road tar,
lumps of flesh jiggling from her upper arms.
A cigarette
dangles between her abundant lips,
her lipstick so red and thick you wonder
whether she could be
one of those women who park
their hatchbacks behind your decrepit
town’s only motel.
She’s wearing a flowered muumuu,
tomato juice dribbled down her bosom, the stains
cleverly disguised by patterns
of pink and scarlet begonias.
Truth be told, you sniff a whiff of b.o.
identical to your obese friend’s who’s quit
speaking to you, another one of life’s unfortunate
but necessary ruptures.
You wonder what signal you missed,
when God became the type of person
to so let herself go, what possible whim
plopped her down amid the crabgrass
and thistles you call yours.
By Lynn Domina
(From Framed in Silence, Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Lynn Domina teaches at SUNY Delhi.)
