The
Way It Is
I like your bones.
I like the way they
fit together.
And the way your veins
run light as breath
down your biceps,
across your forearms.
I especially enjoy how
the lines of your eyes
crinkle into sunshine
when you get an idea
and the way you
flutter like a hen
when I tell you
you’re pretty.
I love the way
those blue eyes
take snapshots
every waking moment.
© Robert Penick
The
Crushes of Old Men
The
young woman at the bank
has cropped black hair. A cross
usually hangs from her neck.
She might be 23. Or 35, but
her brown eyes are innocent
and kind. Sometimes drunk,
I always bumble through
my transaction, and she waits
as I insist on reciting my
account number from memory.
It’s my rear-guard against senility,
to pull these ten digits from the fog.
Money
changes hands
and I leave.
But
I think of her as I drive
to the next transaction, the way
her face looks hopeful
at the monitor, as if she wants
my balance to be more
than I expect.
That’s
what we all want in life,
isn’t it?
I
think she wants that for me.
© Robert Penick
Photograph
of Rucker Kelly Sitting on the
Front Porch
That’s
my life, too:
Trying to look presentable
after toiling in a
factory of stink.
Looking hopeful
in my mid-forties.
We
both tried hard,
you and I,
at the wheel, the plow,
the packing house and
house of correction.
And we worked
like the desperate,
and we loved
like slaves until
our defective hearts
overtook us.
We
were not survived.
© Robert Penick
Robert Penick
has had work in over 100 magazines, including The Antietam Review, Slipstream,
and The Louisville Review. He lives and works in Louisville,
KY - to contact this writer, click here.
