a message on the road

hey man screams a discarded weathered label on a chunk of amber glass from a beer bottle consumed a long time ago by cancerous leperous psoriatic herpetic lips which later kissed the mouth of an unsuspecting peasant woman with two missing front teeth churning a pot of soft polenta on the fire.
hey man. enough with the shit. enough with the melancholy. enough with the sensitive heart.
and then.
photos of a proper southern debutante wedding. sanitized. white. privileged. comfortable people in comfortable clothes with comfortable money.
and then at a small table he tells me of the minefield dotted with little white pills containing chemicals and tumbleweeds made from barbed wire and ditches filled with latrine excrement. he tells me of the road leading to sharp scalpels which will be used to extract a part of his wife’s esophagus and stomach.
that animal.
he says.
it’s relentless. even in remission.

Crystal Ball

—Show me again, she says.
—I can’t now. I’m driving. Don’t be silly.
—When you are finished?
—Ok. But that’s not for a while.
I turn quickly to see what she’s doing. The road bends. And then leans to the left, cutting through the granite geography. She’s buried in between two gargantuan pillows. She is singing quietly to herself.
—Can you breathe in there?
The road bends again. We follow. The car moans a little. I hear myself answering something out loud.
—What?
—Nothing. I may need to take her in, I say.
—To be fixed? Is it broken?
—No, don’t worry. Can you sleep?
She slams down her head onto the thick pillow.
—Don’t forget to show me the scar…
—When we stop.
—Honk, honk.
—It wasn’t a goose, I say. It was a tall swan done pinched me.
She laughs at the construction of that and says: —What’s that word I like?
—Which one?
—The funny one. That’s long.
—Bamboozled.
She laughs hard. And then:
—Honk, hooooonk!
She makes a Dickie Bird with her hand—a fleshy beak that opens and closes in soft bites. Then she stops for a moment. Scrutinizes her hangnail. Bites down on it and I hear a sharp snap. She looks out at the formations of the clouds. Then down into the bowl of a valley, at the minuscule homes with thin lines of smoke drawn up from their stacks.
On the way back, last year, I turned toward the guardrail, off the road, coming down the mountain. Fast. Did you know…
—Turn it up please.
—You like this one?
—Yes. Turn it up please.
—Can you sleep?
She slams down her head. I turn the knob.
—What’s the name?
—Crystal Ball.
—No, the name of the man who sings it.
—It’s Keane.
—What?
—Keane. It’s a group.
She mouths the lyrics.
—After this can you play the one about the Frog Prince?
—If you sleep.
She laughs: —Bam-boozled!
—Just sleep, for God’s sakes. Wiggleworm!
—Noooooo…
—We still have a long way to go.
—How much?
—A loooong way. Hours.
—Free?
—Not that long. Two.
She holds up two fingers to herself. Then flips her hand around to show me. I look at her through the rearview. She sees me and smiles and says:
—Peace!