(Trying to get home – Sept 13 2001)

Patsy has eyelids
with blue shadow
the color of air-brushed
doves on velvet.
She is ringing up our gas.
Her hair is the dusty
orange of hair
that’s gone through too much.

She is wrapping
up our souvenir shot glasses
in Gas-n-Go napkins
because the store doesn’t
give her tissue.

Leonara says,
“I sure love Wyoming”

Patsy says,
“I hate it”

She tells us
about her daughter who died
two weeks ago of Lupus
and how her daughter’s husband
is a jack ass and a drunk
and that when they buried her
he picked a double stone
and the mortician said
that would cost $350 and he said
“I ain’t got $350” so she
had to pay for it
just like the funeral because
she got insurance when
her daughter was 13 years old
and diagnosed but the insurance
company needed the death
certificate before they
would pay so she paid
the $6000 herself and she still
hasn’t seen the check yet
and that drunk son-of-bitch
wanted the furniture so he
could sell it for more
booze and her daughter would have\

got better but the depression
got to her , him keeping
her in that trailer dump,
she kept getting more depressed,
had to be locked up for a while,
meanwhile he’d killed
one pedestrian with a DUI,
and they let him go and he
hit another one so now
he says he ain’t drinking,
just doing weed, but she knows
he’s doing both, he says he ain’t
got no money but she knows
he’s been holding out
on his $500 monthly check from
the oil refinery for booze
and weed while his wife
needed meds, so Patsy had
to work 50 hours a week
at Gas-n-Go to pay for her daughter’s
meds and her other daughter’s
husband is on crystal meth,
Patsy’s afraid she’s getting so
depressed she might kill herself
and take the two kids
with her and that SOB husband
of her first daughter, not two
hours after her death
called her and said,
“Here, come take this cat”,
her daughter’s favorite kitty
and not four hours after
her death he called Patsy’s
other daughter and tried to get
together with her,
her daughter was so depressed
taking 17 pills a day
4 antidepressants, but it wasn’t
the Lupus, it was him
that killed her.

Leonara says,
“You need a hug”
and proceeds to hug her

And we take our shot
glasses and leave.