Gail Goepfert
Do-over
It is plain black
and white. The sign
that turns my head early
this morning.
Old pain. We recycle.
Me. Me! my voice, soundless.
I want to participate—
could someone, anyone
put pain to better use,
cut it into strips
like in a video I scrolled—
an artist crocheting
designer bags
from Goodwill sheets.
I yearn for that
transformation.
To divvy it up—
surely an act of generosity?
In an instant I count
each pain amassed
in the jar of my brain—
countless
lightning bugs seeking
release.
Is it one second, two
before I reread
that plain old black and white—
Old Paint. We recycle.
Coming Clean
The windows in the storefront flaunt an orange neon Repair sign with blue-green
outlines of a loafer and wristwatch to say welcome in. I leave my father in the car, and
inside all indications that this was ever much of a store have vanished—a few belts
hang from pegboard J-hooks, a dozen watchbands drowse in a dusty glass case. A
man emerges from the back with a body-slouch just shy of hunchback. His dress and
language say misfit. Eccentric. “I need a stretchy band. My father’s 100-year-old
fingers can no longer fasten the clasp, and he likes this watch.” That will be $17 for the
band, if I have one that works, and $17 to remove links if needed. That’s much more work. Cash
only. But I can’t do that without seeing his wrist. Then silence. He fiddles, then couples a
new silvered band—could this task be this easy? I don’t want to have to pull out the
walker, launch Dad from the car. Where is he? he asks. I point out the window. He
glances. A sidelong glance. It’s going to be $17 you know. $17 more if I have to remove a link.
Cash only. Resigned, I head out to bring Dad in, but he scuffs along behind me on my
heels to the passenger side. There Dad sits, patient, in his button-down shirt and
khakis. The guy slips the band on Dad’s wrist—a flawless fit. The man warns him not
to twist the band, instructs him three times how to put it on. I pleat the cash into his
hand as he walks off, and he says, Most people his age are not. He’s so clean. So clean.
Gail Goepfert, an associate editor at RHINO Poetry, authored books that include A Mind on Pain (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Tapping Roots (Kelsay Books, 2018), Get Up Said the World (Červená Barva Press, 2020), and Self-Portrait with Thorns (Glass Lyre Press, 2022). This Hard Business of Living, a collaborative chapbook with Patrice Boyer Claeys, was released in 2021 from Seven Kitchens Press, and two photoverse books, Honey from the Sun (2020) and Earth Cafeteria (2023), celebrate fruits and vegetables with Claeys’s centos and Goepfert’s photography.
