Her freeze-dried hair is chicken-fat yellow,
Her roots a rotten brown like bark
Or leaves spit down a stream.
Her fake tan has cured to gold.

Air conditioning laves her skin with cold.
She hasn’t slept for days, and it shows.

She’s two payments late on the pink Vette
Parked out front in the heat. The gleam
Of tungsten light is fierce over each tuck
And fold. Her tattoos fade to flaky blue.

The thuggish kid with spiked hair drives hard,
Hoping to finish on her soon. With luck
She will maybe nap, or eat. Bills are overdue,
And the season burns on. She will need an ice pack.

The crew ignores her. They burp and scratch.
Big Swifty stirs seltzer into sugary wine
To brew up an ersatz champagne—
To celebrate the last shot . . . . He’s done.

They toss her a towel. The world shrinks.
She sees the water-stained ceiling and thinks
She’d like to own a ranch on a snow-lathered hill
Or a villa where gulls scream and waves spill
Around black slivers of rock. The thought scatters
Like the end of this day that feels like all the others.

From the new issue of Raintown Review. Click here to order.

Ernest Hilbert (center) with James Matthew Wilson and Bill Coyle.