THE E-ZINE OF NEWTOWN WRITERS, CHICAGO
Home       Latest Issue       Past Issues       About Us       Submissions

Poetry

By Gale Acuff

Rendezvous

I met a woman with my mother's eyes.
They were giving me the once-over, twice.
Mother's been dead for ten years, but now she's
risen, or a part of her, or those two
parts that work as one, the better to see
me. At first I couldn't focus. Jesus,
I thought. Haven't we met somewhere before?
Yes and no. (She didn't say that—I did).
Hello, I said. I know you don't know me
but would you like to talk. Yes, she replied
—I don't know you. Then she walked away
—not with my mother's walk—down the sidewalk,
leaving me by the newspaper machine,
or dispenser, or whatever it's called.
We could have gotten two papers for one
but I lost fifty cents to Sweet Romance.

I forget the headlines, but the real scoop
is Mother Returns to Haunt Her Son, Takes
Form of Beautiful Woman, Not That She
Wasn't Beautiful When His Mother But
You Know What We Mean. I do: I saw my
-self in her eyes, in the paper (what the
hell is that called?) box-thing, and the distance
between us—it's not far. Will I see her
again? I don't want to lose touch with me.




The Story of My Lives

On her birthday, with money from her folks,
we have my wife's old IUD removed.
She shows me the X-ray. Looks like dog tags,
I say. You're certainly a veteran.
She can't help but crack a smile. I'm glad it's
gone, she says. I read that they're dangerous.
Yes, I say. Especially if some grunt's
attached to it. I think of our son or
daughter, the one we've decided we won't
have, unless we get pregnant, and even
then—we don't think about that. She's had one

abortion before, before she knew me.
That was twenty-five years ago, our trip
to the clinic. We've been divorced twenty.
I would've named the child after me,
if a boy, and if a girl, spelled her Gail.
Where is she now? Part dream, part memory,
and all that might have been. And I never
remarried. Perhaps the ex- has. I don't
know. I don't want to know—that means I want

to know, I know. I'm a grandfather now,
even though I'm not a father, not for
real, though really, in that way that dreams live
in some alternative reality.

That should've been the life we should've lived.
We're going to be a soldier when we grow up.