Everett in Vinton

Couple of us were sitting out
on the front porch smoking
cigarettes, watching evening
traffic thin out.

Jenny had her swollen ankle
propped up on the rail, and
I could feel the dirt from working
in the garden earlier on my shirt
as my mind touched on each of
the stray hairs she hadn’t shaved
closely around the red and purple
puffs of skin and dark bone.

Zach’s friend asked me something
and when I didn’t look at him
right away everybody saw me
staring at Jenny’s sprained ankle.

Later, when me and Jenny first
kissed, panting in humid air
Jenny asked me what had made me kiss her.

It didn’t feel like such a tale
when I told her it was her big, ugly
ankle that had gone and touched
my heart, made my blood run soft
through the crooks and turns in my
tired old heart.

Right up until the end, when
we would make love I used
to kiss that ankle, hold it
framed in the afternoon
sunlight and the chipped
paint of her windowsill.

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