Nymphomagic Electroshock

The ice cracks and weeps

black running veins in the road

and it’s warmer, sure,

but this is the worst

time in Alaska

because

the melt-off will take

weeks, maybe

until the end of

May to clear out

from the yard and

meanwhile

October’s dogshit emerges

from the gray stink of

April meltwater and damned

if it isn’t just dirty-ugly, the

dirty ice, dirty snow

and what grass that

shows is as

brown as the

dogshit not one of these

stupid moose-humpers feels

obliged to pick up

when they walk their

dogs

and it was at this time of

year called “Breakup” (no shit) that

I was feeling every second of my

41 years walking out to

get the mail and

I looked

down

the street and

there was this

blonde child

of about

18 or so

her blonde hair

flowing over

the collar of her

puffy blue jacket like

molten life everlasting

when saw me 
seeing her she

waved and

smiled so large
her teeth 
smiled with her

and

most unnerving

of all was
the creeping
feeling

she meant it.

Throughout the

long breakup season

I treasured her

starshine slap

letting it

sustain me though a

fitful drowse of summer

and the sad breakaway from

Alaska that happened that

Fall, when I drove

my family across Alaska

into Canada, through forest

and city and canyon and

settled for a while across

the sound from Seattle, among

some of the most hideous and

warped humanoids I ever

saw in a climate that

was too bleak to be

believed.

It was two months longer

than the longest year before the

Navy ordered us cross-

country to Virginia.

It was in Sioux Falls, South

Dakota, a frozen gray fogbound

sinus of a morning after a day of

winding around the Black Hills and

Mount Rushmore and a sunset chase on

the prairie with my wife and children by

the rest stop before the long straight

deadly dull night drive into a

cigarette-stenched hotel room. 

We were so glad to be out

of our smelly hotel room for a

free waffle breakfast even though

it looked as if we’d have to fit

ourselves in among a girl’s

high school basketball team on

their way to play a game in

Nebraska

a long way south but

that’s what they do here.

No, this wasn’t at all like

the last time, this time the

smile-blast was buckshot with

meaning as I

motioned her to

go on ahead of me to

the waffle iron and

up went the corners

of an otherwise

undistinguished mouth

and I stood 
caught

dazzled, as she

told me without

speaking “It’s all

right, Daddy, I’m still

waking up but for

this I love you so

very much and

so I grant you

this

“while denying the

vampiric old

slug within you

which would like 
nothing more than 
to rub its soft naked 
decay against my taut 
springtime warmth for 
the sake of affirming 
its value as something
which somehow hasn’t 
died yet, instead

“I affirm and

celebrate the

innocence you so

mistakenly mourn for

gone in everyone, 
especially older teenage 
girls like me and even

(believe it!) yourself.”

and with the

revealing light of

her smile, a wild

fresh wind

blowing, as

the Great

Bukowski

so aptly put it,

breathing life

into so many things

I didn’t know

still breathed

though now I

wonder, did I

have to go all

the way to Alaska and

South Dakota to

experience this or was

it just a matter of

being such a

cranky old Daddy in

form, appearance and

(sometimes) function that

these rare Girls

couldn’t help but

respond?

I never knew such

guileless and sweet-for

sweet’s sake Girls growing

up in South Carolina, they

were as much out for

something as I was,

circling predators competing

for the biggest chunks of meat

from one another

and I presumed that

was the way it was

everywhere

from Mobile to

New York City I saw

nothing so much as

to suggest an

alternative

so I count myself

lucky for being

where I was and

for what I have

beheld

even if I sometimes 
think that the good 
things that keep you 
going are sometimes 
the worst

enabling more

useless struggle against

a decidedly unpleasant

inevitable, still

years after that

first smile among the

rotting ice and  

thawing turds and

thousands of

miles removed from

the basketball

player standing

out amongst her

blandly chattering

teammates with a

singular flex of

Olympian

heart

I still get a

lift from these

visions and (oh

hell yes) I

live for the

possibility

of one

more

maybe from the

pretty young

nurse as I lie

abed

right before

the final

lights

out

I could die

richer than

God.

___________________________________________________________________
From the forthcoming collection Nymphomagic Electroshock and Other Middle-Aged Complaints.
Copyright © 2004, 2017 by Lawrence Roy Aiken.