Ok, yeah, that's Joey Buttafuocco, esq., over there to the right, scowling majestically. It's not me. At least not physically. Spiritually, maybe. If indeed it can be said Mr. Buttafuocco is a spiritual creature, if he has that divine spark. I think he does. Maybe it means I do too.
***
Rain today but a pleasant rain, generally. Running errands, before it began, just before, rushing home, and a young girl shouting to me, "You're going to get drenched."
Yes, probably.
But I made it under an overhang and waited a few minutes for the shower to pass and headed home through the new air.
***
Eating lunch today, I sat behind a young, single mother with her little boy, probably age 7. The mother looked up, surprised to see her ex.
"I can't believe you came over here," she said, looking back down to her food.
And that's all I could hear, at least in the sense of discernible words. They spoke quietly, through obvious hurt, and it was all tone, posture, eye contact, that spoke all.
Sometimes you don't need words at all.
About Me
- Paul
- Paul Guest is the author of four volumes of poetry and a memoir. His debut, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World, was awarded the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. His second collection, Notes for My Body Double, was awarded the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His third collection, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge, was published by Ecco Press/HarperCollins in 2008. His fourth collection, Because Everything Is Terrible, was published by Diode Editions. His poems have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. His memoir, One More Theory About Happiness, was published by Ecco in May 2010 and selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. The recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Whiting Writers' Award, Guest lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
1 comment:
Hmm. With that lovely observation of the ex-couple, if only the man had said something rash and ultimately self-emasculating; if only he'd done something final, such as throw a pepper shaker, and the young woman would have said "That's it! That's it!" it could be a Carver story.
It would be called "Sometimes You Don't Need Words At All."
I jest, yes, but, c'mon: I love Carver stories.
-cK
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