Pink single-wide
plopped in a pasture
that houses my favorite billboard,
“Curtis Watson’s Catfish Restaurant:
Free Cornbread Basket.”
I used to drink whiskey every time I ate catfish
Vern shares.
Vern, Lucille
last table
Delta Café.
Hop in
Vern says,
jumper cables
not churning
my truck battery
one iota.
Junior year
’02,
I left a keg party
for a guy
living in a cow field
just like this one
where Curtis Watson
lives.
Futon thrown on green shag,
Saddle up on top
ride me like a stud
not some Clydesdale
and say ‘Fuck’
‘Fuck my twat Dwayne.’
Wing-Nut
the German Shepherd
gnawing on Spam,
Wing Nut’s turds
the size of ash trays.Mom’s boyfriend, RJ,
peeing in our shower,
“Saves toilet paper,”
RJ pinching my ass
boobs, thighs
daily.
II.
Firelake Indian Casino exit,
Lucille says
if she, Vern
still “boozers-deluxe‑o”
they’d be at home
busting each other’s noses.
I fractured Vern’s wrist
a black-out.
Stabbed my arm
a knitting needle
thinking my arm
was Vern’s–
that’s when we found recovery.
I stayed in Dwayne’s trailer three days.
Dwayne’s Grandma
chain smoking Winstons
from her wheelchair,
adult diaper
not changed during
Cops, All My Children
cuz she’d bite.
McCloud Exit,
Lucille gifts
Wheat Chex-pretzel mix,
Me, Vern, Lucille,
I‑Traveled-To-Hell
club members,
invisible t‑shirts
safety orange,
“ Survivor”
etched in red.
Amy Susan Wilson has recently published in Southern Women’s Review, Southern
Literary Review, Cybersoleil, Dead Mule, Crosstimbers, Red River Review, The Literary Lawyer, Red Dirt Review, and in other similar publications. Amy Susan is the Founder and Publisher of Red Truck Review: A Forum of Southern Literature and Culture, forthcoming September 2013; www.facebook.com/redtruckreview. Amy lives in Shawnee, Oklahoma, one of the world’s few towns that boasts both an operational K‑Mart and go-cart race track adjacent to June’s Sno-Cone Shak, Home of Ninety-Nine Flavors.