Red Pen, Brown Paper

Red Pen, Brown Paper

A writer without her notebook

is a coffee drinker

with a cup of tea

               a rummaged red pen

               and a recycled napkin

outside the tire shop

waiting in the winter sun

to erase the evidence

of that day          when she jumped the curb

in a slow hurry.

How easy it would be

to ignore the gash—

tires don’t bleed, after all—

and to deny that the sun’s rays

               warm on her neck

do not irradiate skin

and that no one she knows

is close to dying.

Only love in the world today

please, scratched in red ink

only love

in the clerk’s eyes

only patience

waiting in the winter sun

for two new tires

to keep her safe

and balanced

at seventy-five on the freeway

when the sun is in her eyes.

by Andi Penner, 2016