By: Eric Howard
One minute out on Route 78 south,
in a four-door with a radio, she rolled
her window down, let her hand
cup and carve the desert air
that fluttered her collar bow, and smiled.
Above the sand, the cornea
of sky arched. Cousin Larry
was driving, friends Beth and Teddy Rupp
in back. Her baby was safe at home,
two weeks’ pay in her purse. What
she wanted was a Coke on ice in Felicity.
The radio played a song to hum to.
Then she pushed knuckles to her cheeks and stuck out her tongue,
just for a laugh. Beth, the one about to live,
smiled and said, “Mae, you cuttin’ up.”
***
Eric Howard is a magazine editor who lives in Los Angeles. He has appeared in the anthologies Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems, and Revolutionary Poets Brigade. His poems have appeared in Black Heart Magazine, Blinders Literary Journal, Hartskill Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Caveat Lector, Conduit, Gulf Stream Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Plainsong, and The Sun.