Three teenage girls can do many things.
On this day, we pulled into the station, and spent our last
27 cents on gas from the boy
I wanted to go to the prom with, desperately.
He looked down at the meager coins in his palm,
thinking he must be missing something.
As we planned, while the girls chatted him up,
I slipped my note into the pocket of his blue jacket,
the one hung inside on a hook
his name, Mark, embroidered in a circle on the front.
Hope rose from that pocket like steam
from the sidewalk after a hot summer rain.
Years later he joined the Navy, got married after I said no.
How could I have known that day at the Mobil,
that we would narrowly miss being locked in for life?
work has been published in NAMI:The Journal, City Works, and most recently
in Muddy River Poetry Review. Her first chapbook, No Shortcuts, was
self-published, and a second one will be completed at the end of this year.
Marg is a physical therapist and often writes about pain and loss, and the process
of putting back together again. She also enjoys writing about nature, where she
is most at home.