Wait a minute! Is it still TODAY? Poem: In Memory of My Ex - Poem: On the Way Home from the Blood Draw

See, last night I was submitting my work - oh, there was the The Bump, which I could not find where to submit to,  something with Slush in the title. Finally of course I found it, all the while yawning, eating my Trail Mix, drinking gobs of water, but then at midnight I had to stop eating and drinking for my blood test this morning.

Also submitted How Great Thou Art to one of Amy Huffman's publications. I always need people's approval - dammnit - before I submit.

Woke up shortly before 7 am and got ready to drive to Quest Diagnostic in J'town.

Yes, I knew the way. Is that a function of age? Or have I always been like this.

One guy was just leaving Quest. I heard his voice from Room One, thanking the phlebotomist. Very self-confident.

Her name was Joan. In the wee-wee hours of the night - oh, around 4 - I prepared my urine container. It's probly TMI to describe how I do it, but one thing's for sure. I can't do it in their baffroom. You must, tho, if you're getting a drug test for work.

I thanked Joan and remembered just in time to get another urine container. I could not wait to get home and get back in bed.

First, tho, I made breakfast with Sarah's left over squash- mushroom concoction, a couple of eggs, garlic and cheese. Then I wrote a poem for FB which no one looked at, so I removed it and will fix it right now.

However, since today is September 6, I wrote a new poem for my late husband. Just posted that on FB. For a while I had his suit jacket in my upstairs hall closet. He'd left it a dozen years ago when he heard a lecture at Pennypack Trust.

What it was doing here - from Bobzien Tailors in Oklahoma City - I have no idea. Finally I gave it to Impact Thrift. And of course I had wrin a poem about his jacket.

IN MEMORY OF MY EX

When his birthday comes around
it's all I can do to blink
away the tears of sadness

He was a good man. A kind man.
A principled man. A loving man.
A Presbyterian elder in days to come.

In the back of Married Student
Housing in Austin, the rich Texan
earth yielded up gardens. And
fig trees such as this Northern
girl - they called me a Yankee -
had never seen.

My farm boy Mike, knew how
to plant. The fig trees brought
forth juicy succulent fruit he
let Baby Sarah pluck from the tree.

Baby Sarah would walk with him
in her second-hand pink overalls.
He sang to her in that
incomparable Texas twang,
"I loves you Baby Sarah, yes
I do."

I'd make us some fig-filled
cupcakes, or spice cakes filled with
cinnamon, cardamom and molasses.

Where is that man now? Alas he left us.
His heart gave out. But I'll tell you
something. Today I'll celebrate his
birthday, with thought and memory and
a piece of my heart.

***

ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE BLOOD DRAW

The school buses were out
full force, an army to
educate the future leaders
of America

A young father threw a toy to
his black lab on a hill at
the elementary school before
the bus got there

An older couple - you always
see them hand in hand - briskly
crossed the street - she, erect,
with muscled arms, he in the
de rigeur baseball cap

I pass by, ensconced in my car
aching for sleep from my
early morning rising, and the
surrendering of three
vials of blood

The radio's off, the better
to wonder at the waning year.
I dream of scrambling under
my warm blanket and if only
it were possible to resume a
wonderful dream I was having
about a handsome man with
short-cropped hair, a copper,
he said, who was courting
my mother. I pretended to
be happy for her, but wanted
him for mine all mine.