DONALD RAWLEY

Helen in Waiting


Helen's been a bridesmaid five times.

She's a big redhead, six feet tall
with a frosted lipstick grin,
punctuated legs, and a big ass
drenched in My Sin.

She live high in Malibu
with a view, fire warnings weekly,
a greenhouse with a hot tub,
and collie bitch named Pearl.

Sometimes she'll talk about Texas
and the sons her father never had,
how she finally jumped ship,
drove across deserts to see the sea.

Other women are Helen's secret fling;
she picks the mistresses up
at hotels and casinos.
After they've been ditched.

She'll nurse them back
in her hilltop cabin of mimosa and mists,
cook for them and drink with them.
Helen's got big shoulders.

Helen walks and dreams at dusk
when the Pacific slowly laps
the edge of her horizons,
smelling giant sweet peas and wild gardenia,

and remembers not to think of pasts,
how she was left to sit alone
like some giant cow in her field,
no one writing back.

But every Sunday for church
Helen wears lavender silk suits,
the sun's best daughter,
her hair spun like fire
as she makes her way down the road
with the top down and the radio on.

 

Malibu Stories © 1991, Black Tie Press. All rights reserved.

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