Encounters with Strangers: Caledonia, Michigan
1.
Wayne has not slept a wink since
Mary Sue died so he spends his nights
waiting at the 24 hour gym off 37
He sits near the drinking fountain
in case anyone comes His new dog
waits in the car all night watching through the window.
2.
After Luanne closes the register for the night
she crosses Main just in time for
karaoke at the Family Tavern
She listens to younger women cover
Fleetwood Mac and she doesn’t
drink much this summer but tonight
she deserves it and will until she remembers
to forget Haley and Dale and what they did to her
and notices the bartender and how beautiful
she looks in that cowgirl hat.
3.
Emma says that we should get coffee again
sometime soon at the Essential
Bean on Cherry Valley
like it’s Drivers Ed again having now found
God she’d like to catch up
on what we’ve been up to and honestly, who knows
If she’s actually interested.
4.
Transferring out of Community next semester Tyler
drives hours with Chris with the bald head
to apartment shop and all she thinks about
is how badly Tyler needs a haircut
The way carwash sweat of July collects
between his glasses and hairline
5.
After four years of love Jeps finally
gives up
the chewing tobacco
These days the meds make him too nauseous
to work the gym counter, the smell of overnight
sweat too much in the early mornings.
6.
Ronie had her baby girl
Fourteen months was so worth it
Just seeing everyone’s reactions to the most beautiful
child Kent County’s seen in years Soon
she will return to the Ice Cream Express and make
the best dip
cones on Main St.
7.
Home for the summer, Josie’s
a liberal what a shock to see
the shortest student in the history of Caledonia High
nurse jetlag from a flight from California
for three whole weeks when she wakes
Megan and Lizzie will be there waving
banners in her face.
8.
Dan can’t quit the cigarettes According
to Kathy and their twelve girls he’s been off
for a year now but after dark, the nights when no one visits
he sneaks to the dusty pole barn It would kill
Sarah or Bridget or Constance and his hundreds
and hundreds of grandbabies to know.
9.
Felicia keeps carving her mom’s name
into the beams of her cottage
It’s been unfinished for two years now the drive north,
too much time to think.
10.
This is the first time that Sam with the two
first names has been home since
he tested positive how could this be the product of
years of a Christian education? His violin
Alarms in the dark.
11.
My father might kill Kylie
by the end of the summer
If she dumps her grass clippings
on his yard again
he'll raise high hell
To calm his temper he lets the dog
shit on her lawn, doesn’t pick it up.
12.
Chris can’t keep keeping
secrets from his kids
It hurts every time he misses aeroplanes
Has to tell them its
for work reasons reality is
this will never change.
13.
Just like when I was in fifth grade Todd sits
in his office chair and blasts
Journey for the kids to run
the dewey gym it is summer and the Emmons Lake
kids still melt to his screaming voice.
14.
Dawn
is still the blondest woman in the entire world.
She makes friends just to break them.
With her honey
British voice she enters homes and takes
things, so slowly
Joseph Felkers studies English at Harvard College. His work appears in Juked, Rust + Moth, Birdfeast, and elsewhere, and has been recognized by Harvard University, Princeton University, and The Poetry Society of Virginia.