Mudflap Girl Speaks

---

My hot minute as a pin-up: the golden hour’s

slick ruse. More likely, Stu drew the thin frame

of a girl downtown, feral dame I feared as a newly

housed wife. Or a wisp of the she before me,

untethered Amazon freewheeling the countryside.

Her body’s open road, long haul, radio static,

bellowing semi horn her call. Maybe she was

a goddess of his dreams: the slope of spine

a dangerous curve at night, dark crease along hip,

one-way bridge, flashing lights. Change gears

too fast, and areolas’ inverted potholes will shred

thread, send a rig skittering sideways across

Highway One, a full cache of beer and glass

crashed. I prayed that he’d come home, wanted

to bang the road from his bones, but I tired of his

crass jokes, how he thought time stopped when he

was gone. I sundialed in sheets, pined for a woman

who went braless at the post office, the peaked

grottos of her tits in the cool dark of an old cotton

shirt. My breasts were a roadside attraction, though

the toots and whistles were for a phantom sexpot

they dreamt of bending over, never kissing.