Linda Lowe

Saying Goodbye

Pictures on the walls are losing their grip and falling to the floor. Drapes in the bedroom keep opening and closing. In the bathroom, I look for logic but the tub is running and there’s no turning it off. More insanity in the kitchen, where plates are smashing into cups. How so, I wonder, but let it go. Nothing’s coming for me, but is there something I should do? Pack my bags, hail a cab? Take that trip we planned, that always seemed to slip away? Like you did, finally. Tell me. Should I turn out the lights and go?

 

 1960

She came home hemorrhaging, said it was a nino, that it cost $500.00, that the money came from her grandmother, that her mother was furious. She said she didn’t tell her boyfriend because he’d slap her silly for being so careless. The plane was exciting, her first time up, and she was glad the cab driver spoke English. In the alley where he dropped her off, little girls were selling gum. “Chicle,” they called out, “Chicle, please, pretty girl, please.” She chewed the sweet gum while overhead a single light bulb swayed on its long cord, silent as the moon.

 

Linda Lowe received her M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine. A chapbook of her poems, Karmic Negotiations was published by Sarasota Theatre Press. Online her work has appeared in The New Verse News, BOMFIRE, and others.