Robin Dionne is a reader and writer living in Rhode Island.
Robin Dionne is a reader and writer living in Rhode Island.
Second Shift
Scratching my nails on the dirty ground
you watched me scrape a penny out of a puddle,
holding up traffic for a single cent,
determined to collect every shiny thing I saw.
We kept our heads down,
and ignored the warnings about bad luck.
I kept that coin,
and we carried it to a rusty riverboat casino,
half sunk,
submerged in the Gulf Coast,
both of us playing bad pennies,
already knowing the odds.
Back home, our friends placed bets
but we kept at it,
investing in a carnival game we couldn’t win,
the barker begging you to spend money you didn’t have on a basketball hoop bent out of shape,
a ring too small for the bottlenecks lined up in wait,
to win prizes worth less than what we spent.
We divided our winnings -
they never amounted to much:
our broken down car
a few hundred scratched up records
the empty perfume bottle I left under your pillow,
and you doubled down and committed to the south.
I took myself to the airport,
headed north to our little city,
and spent a decade panning for gold
until I found it right where I started.
In court,
the response would be cold, cutting,
with none of the nuance I love -
we’ve been over this.
Asked, answered, and asked again,
the answer does not change.
Not during a silent drive home from Maine
when we left before breakfast,
speeding home
because you had somewhere better to be,
work to do,
missed calls to return,
a story to get straight.
Not after a Forest Hills Cemetery
scavenger hunt
on a Saturday stolen from our real lives,
carved out quietly sixty miles from home -
no one here to see us but the bones,
and they’re not going to call your girlfriend
and tell her that you’ve stepped out,
again,
with someone who doesn’t know
how to dress
for the weather.
I always thought I’d be a great lawyer,
with my love for documenting it all,
my desire to prove a point,
asking and answering myself
without a competitive bone in my body,
and if this is any indication,
I could’ve gone a few rounds.
Drinking our way through the littlest city,
our bar stools were so close,
I couldn’t get out if I wanted to.
And I wanted to,
some of the time -
but after years of wrong answers,
I would not give up on our puzzles.
You were too proud to let me make the exit I wanted,
graceful, when I imagined it alone at night:
a quick and straight path
out the back door and into the darkness,
key in the ignition of the car you helped me buy,
phone on silent for the drive home,
just to put a finer point on my commitment to the end,
really truly the end,
this time.
Instead, in daylight,
after too many questions or an
icy New England ultimatum,
my leaving was layered -
a slow and awkward collecting of belongings,
clothes and winter coats scattered across the room,
piles of paper, empty cans,
and laptop cords covering the bar.
We fought with those little clues
every night,
cursing their author,
holed up across town
with his own ugly problems,
until I gave in and gave up -
graceless as they come,
because my brain does not work that way,
and I do not play word games,
unless I have something rude to say
about your newest pursuit,
a perfectly presentable doll
you can roll out for holiday small talk
but who has most certainly never set foot
inside a library.
It has taken me ten years
to stay true to my word
and commit to that quitting.
I don’t need
your answers now,
because I married
the puzzle maker.
This is an apology:
the photo I looked at all winter to keep warm,
blurry blue reflections in
the iced-over glass of your front door.
Two of us at a frozen standstill
as you fumbled with keys,
our coffee,
The Sunday Tribune.
You’re sorry for the delay,
taking the blame for Midwestern winters
and my bad decisions with footwear –
two things I can’t get away from,
a little moth who loves the wrong light.
This is an apology:
you and me at the end of old town,
five am with Naked Raygun on the jukebox,
taking a fifty-cent tour of the city without leaving our barstools.
A split second decision to get in the cab
and leave you and six months on the corner,
gambling and guessing you’d
follow me
to the lake at dawn.
This is an apology:
your wrinkled suit,
destroyed after a night out.
My favorite robe on the hook right next to it,
a long day spent showing you
the best parts of myself,
walking wet footprints in circles,
but
never dressing the part,
never on time.
This is an apology.
You are a permanent resident
in a small town of one,
living a life
made of bills you can’t pay
with a home full of things you don’t own
and ideas that aren’t yours-
using box dye as currency,
overexposure you’ll come to regret,
spinning stories
no one believes.
I can’t write off your past,
but I’ve counted your excuses
and used your doubts
to settle this debt.
My choices, the two splintery legs of a wishbone:
A dead end or a welcome road.
The opportunity of a lightning bolt,
or the shock of an electric fence keeping me in.
Broken glass at home at the bottom of the sink,
or the sound of the ice singing as the frozen lake shatters.
My sister and I were raised to think that men do not feel pain -
our too young working class father,
surprised by children in his early twenties,
let us punch and bite him
and he did not flinch.
Our mechanic grandfather,
retired at forty, simmering at home for decades,
let us climb the ancient recliner he still sits in and jump on him from above,
and he did not flinch.
After years of begging you to show your hand,
even a single card,
you bring your poker face back to my door and
tell me you’ll always carry me in your pocket.
I picture existing in there amongst the
screws and bits of wire,
destined to destroy our washing machine,
and when I scream,
you do not flinch.
You see me.
You see me
with my bag of broken tools,
spinning loss into gold
spinning bone into clouds
spinning time into blood.
Suddenly, everyone is a mason
with opinions on what I should
do with these bricks-
use them to build a new bedroom:
soft sheets, dark walls
or
use them to entomb the bodies in the basement:
up against the wall in the wine cellar,
secure behind layers of misery and cold mortar.
You say I’m your
favorite constellation,
all teeth and eyes.
My favorite constellation,
you and I whispering,
shoes off,
at the two addresses I consider home,
studying blueprints of broken glass
and discolored granite.
Breathing in place for two hundred years before we met,
those lonely columns have seen it all -
dragged twelve miles into place by horse and carriage,
paraded through town before the invention of electricity,
a sure sign of success
in the new city center
where we dredged the river and built a bank.
We are in a hurry to
bulldoze the years and
build a foundation,
desperate to put down lines -
my blood mixed with yours
at the bottom of a legal document.
Let’s bury it
let’s bury it
I’ll bury it.
Three thousand days:
to argue about an oil slick
for our ancient motorcycles to catch fire
to count dog teeth
for your sister’s kids to grow up and graduate
to ask me how the fuck I am
to ask me to stay.
I am splitting open
in mid-air -
time traveling to the boys I loved in high school;
you’re running interference on the ground,
caught between what you know I am and
what I want to be.
Knee deep and snow blind,
I’ve got plans to sink this ship
page by page,
slow burning
gasoline
to keep
warm.
You said, “I don’t small talk with seasons,”*-
Well, I don’t small talk with men,
and I’ll tell you every mistake I’ve ever made:
about the bones in the basement and
the symphony that played when I put them to bed,
the black fingerprints I can’t wash off and
the exhaust backfiring from four streets away,
the thousand miles I gambled with last spring,
all one hundred out of one hundred times,
and I will close with an invitation for you
to prove it to me with plane tickets.
On the fifth floor, we set a timer and I asked you, what will our life be like?
We will cover the walls of our home with memories of the places we’ve been.
I saw those walls, and the red eyes,
boys, and long lines I’d give up to keep you,
my Chicago winters slipping away in my sleep.
Scratching over the end of the alphabet,
the initials I carved in stone that first summer,
I am bringing home the best thing I can carry this fall.
I am learning to pack light,
leaving behind years of cold granite nights,
snowy city rooftops at dawn
and the plank I walked each morning;
hand built with love by the electricity
that could not melt the metal I held in my dreams.
On the seventeenth floor,
dressed in glitter, I asked:
tell me the worst thing that has happened to you this year,
and you said - I see those scars and raise you a lifetime*.
*on loan from bjm
In the same corner
in another bar
last night
in the little city,
I told you everything -
where I’ve been for the past decade,
my expensive mistake,
about the building that kept me up at night
how you keep me up at night -
with a warning
that I don’t do things halfway,
and you said,
“Kenny Rogers, really?”
You’re an only child,
spoiled sick at the edge of the Atlantic, and
I make the drive week after week.
We stay up late burning it down,
twenty years of ash on the beach
and your dad still comes out to say hello -
his accent hard to understand,
but it’s a time machine for me
and I’m 18 all over again,
happy to hear it.
He’s got a story about a prostitute
he rents a cheap apartment to
out on Route 6,
and it seems she never pays her rent on time.
I’m a nice guy, he says - but money is money.
It is never the right time for us
and I leave after midnight,
a long dark drive that still scares me.
We are separated by a red eye and diamonds now,
your desert replacing our coast,
but an only child always comes home.
At sunrise,
after talking for eight hours,
I asked about your most prized possession,
the object for which you’re most known,
and
you described in great detail
the beauty of uncovering rust in the forest
and bringing it home.
At sunrise,
after talking for eight years,
I asked about our unfinished plans
and
I described in great detail
the sadness of scratching the surface,
digging for answers,
last on your list of repairs.
The edge of your bed
looks different than I imagined
when I am here,
early morning,
in that shirt you like so much.
I’m straightening your shoes
and scrubbing the kitchen,
putting everything in the wrong place,
so scared you’ll come home and get lost.
I’m white knuckling through
the peroxide and paper towels,
red-eyed and exposed to a stranger,
who works quietly and without complaint
but reminds me to keep my hands off your
valuables.
Your new plans have changed our game,
and last call looks different now -
but I will keep showing up with that
goddamned orange jell-o if you
tell me it’s what you need.
One hundred out of one hundred times, you said
you’d choose to take the chance and gamble
on me and all 967 miles-
but what’s the over/under
on how long I can act right?
Don’t cry honey -
you know how it ends.
They either get married,
or they die.
You’re the master of ceremonies
of our irregular orbit-
Fifteen years resting on the sharpest side
of the knife.
I’m lowering the ladder
inviting you up for
a game of
overnight option paralysis -
I know I can’t win,
but I swear I believe you.
I have been a blood bank
for the boys in this town
but
if you can convince me to stay up tonight,
I will borrow from you,
keep track of your typos
and still show my cards at sunrise.
Later, we will talk logistics.
For now, when I am shaky at my desk and I ask
why we are like this,
you say,
”It’s like finding a new door in an old home”
and I say,
”It’s like lightning, if lightning were friendly and called you once in awhile to
say hello and talk about Raymond Carver”.
Me and you and the redwoods
and
Me and you and the Pacific
or
Me and you and too many dogs
and
Me and you and my long long leash.
I’m red lips and tall shoes,
you, dressed dark with no ring-
You’re leaving black fingerprints
while
I’m dirty clean living,
up all night
shutting down other cities.
You’re dripping from the ceiling,
scaling the scaffolding
and
I’m above the equator,
all dressed up with no where to go,
waiting to start
the world’s shortest party:
just me and you and
endless innuendos and rants.
I have seen this bridge through
two decades of rust,
crumbling teeth and construction
broken red brick,
black eyes,
my favorite records skipping on tape,
and a metal I still taste in my sleep.
I stay on my own side now,
with you edging closer,
your wife spending diamonds
to keep up with friends-
bargaining with Jesus for more time
before she becomes her own mother.
You are up all day,
circling the little city
supplying snow-day champagne to
east side shut-ins
and
we are up all night,
circling each other
telling twelve year old secrets
trading twenty year old love songs
in our matching sweaters
with our made-up rules
saving the best for
last call.
I am being paid to make lists,
take inventory,
and
dismantle the dream
you kept me up all night building -
your shift drink turned into black eyes,
lost keys,
stitches
and a hospital stay.
On paper, I am tied to you,
your blood mine.
You knew i would
answer and
say yes,
I will always
say yes.
I am up all
night digging,
superstitious and scratching the surface
of four winters -
throwing dirt over one shoulder
and
salt over the other.
You follow behind at the end of the alphabet,
clean fill mixed with blood and bones,
an OSHA violation if I've ever seen one.
I woke up
in our building
to the sound of trash trucks outside
glass breaking in bed
different tattoos
and a fight in the alley.
Four years of your one word quicksand
and cocktails in the corner seat
and I'm still here with the ghosts,
waiting while you fucking build it without me.
It's been six months
of wet paint and wine cellars,
signing in to have
our morning coffee caught on camera
but now
they are right behind us,
sheet-rocking over the secrets
that we hid in the walls.
I'm collecting the keys,
locking the doors,
and
taking home everything I can carry,
while you learn to write in code,
silent after dark,
your time and materials
measured
against a daily log.
The currency you have come to rely on
has an expiration date signaled by
brightly colored cheap clothing a decade too young for you,
hungover dark circles around your eyes,
and
pastel invitations to the baby showers of your friends.
As for me,
I have always been better prepared -
staying out of the sun,
trading with pen and ink,
an eye toward the future
and an eye on the fire.
title written by Courtney Denelle
You said this to me so many times,
when I would catch you showing
your crooked teeth instead of sleeping.
At the pool this morning, I heard a small child
say the same thing to his mother when
he was about to get in trouble for doing something funny.
I thought of you all day long,
maybe feeling a little sorry for myself,
and when I went to make the coffee alone,
I remembered that three hours away in your tiny kitchen
you keep the spoons in a jar on the counter, too.
The latest chapter
in our never-ending story
has me
alone in a Southern airport,
heavy bags packed with all
the thrift store finds we dug up
on our way to your new city.
Early on,
enamored with you and jealous
of your ability to cook, to create
something beautiful from nothing,
I learned to trust myself
enough so that I could do it, too,
and
frustrated by my insecurities,
you showed me, over time,
how to be my own best company
in order to function well
alongside you
and later,
alone.
In bed last night,
I memorized your face,
lit by your night owl neighbor’s
porch bulb (he sang along with
old motown records until it was
nearly light out),
your funny old man hair
poking up at all angles
as you slept beside me.
I watched the clock, listening
to the songs that put us to sleep
when we were young and hopeful,
and I counted your ribs-
I have done this so many times
that I am sure I could tell you their spacing,
down to the smallest
fraction of an inch.
I cannot replace you, like you think I can.
In five years in seven years in ten years in twelve years, I have not even come close.