Delorise

My first attempt at a prose poem.

Delorise

I only knew her in her work uniform, a red sweater with a white turtleneck protruding around her collar, her black hair short and shiny on her skull that it looked as if she had meticulously painted it on every morning like some primitive warrior painting his face for the fight to come.

I merely knew her buck teeth, her smile, her husband occasionally stopping in the store to pick up a few things and say hello to his lovely wife—his sassy, witty, queen of a wife who spoke in cackling shouts and whispered in buzzing hums.

I only knew her commentary on the state of the customers, life, how crazy they all were, how people had lost their goddamned minds.

Mmmhmmmmmmmmm, she would groan in conclusion as she checked her fingernails, the night’s schedule, the time.

I only knew that I knew she was a woman who spoke what she knew, who spoke the truth without knowing, who was wise without knowing.

I understood that she understood the ways in which the world works.

When I received word that her mother died back home in some state south of here where it’s warm all year and people have accents, and that she’d be back to work in a week or two, I imagined the hug I would give her, the small consolation I could offer in place of the advice I would never have, to show her my fellow employees mattered to me, that her buying me a punching Santa Claus pen from the dollar store was worth something to me in the long run, that it still stands in my metal cup on my desk, ready to punch any offensive pens or pencils that may cross its path.

But somehow I knew our hug would never happen, and when I was told that she was packing up and moving back to Arkansas immediately, I understood again that she understood the ways in which the world does work.

I was relieved, happy for her, I imagined her inspired by her mother’s death, suddenly realizing how short life is, how unimportant the stores and customers really are. How we take everything for granted. How we waste our time fighting amongst one another towards some utopian goal, a world of our own making that would contain us and everyone else that we like, where we’d live forever, just eating, breathing, singing, laughing, and admiring the eternal stars.

How our lives become devoted to building up to a climax that only brings an infinite black.

How we waste our time on needless projects.

I imagine her driving away in a pink Cadillac, top down even in the middle of Michigan winter, her scarf waving goodbye to the flurries, the unenlightened people cruising the speed limit in the lanes beside her, becoming flurries themselves in the dark light of her round sunglasses as the years she knew end in a climax of blackness and her new life on earth opens like the red curtain before the second act, the spotlight centered on the empty stage waiting for her to enter from the left.

It’s there waiting for her to bask in its glow.