JOE SPEER

Room to Let

smooth skin college sophomore
searching the campus purlieu
for lodging other than dorm
sign on cardboard in window
to let
reminds me of the gall
of Galsworthy’s Soames
selling the house he built for his wife
and she lives in it without him
a 1936 Plymouth in the driveway
ceramic chimes icicle porch
knock knock
shrill voice bids enter
Mrs Smith peers over steel rimed spectacles
surrounded by art books
she looks for pic of osprey
to embroider on doily
walls canvassed with her paintings
she tells me stories of her 89 years
the room is at the end of the hall
her crutch points
a van Gogh Thoreau simplicity
40 dollars a month and kitchen use
i move in the same day
two other roomers share house
Rudolph is into jurisprudence
phones his girlfriend twice a day
Jimbo consumed by sports
volunteers to referee girls volleyball
weekends spent busting kegs with paper cup
her daughter visits bimonthly
to clean and drink cup of instant coffee
before she skedaddles back
to vending real estate
once we solidify friendship
she becomes a target for puckish darts
i hide her crochet needles
tie her crutches together
change channels as she leaves the room
we watch the news
and shout bring our troops home
one night i gulp down her milk
unawares and retreat to my room
she calls out my name
and asks if i emptied her glass
i was reading Homer
the part where Polyphemus
hurls a stone at nobody
i might convince her
except for white arc on upper lip
then after every random breeze
she accuses me
of making calls to Singapore
of spending spring break in Thailand
to spend funds on skin trade
she forces me into peace pact
and our relationship levels off
one Saturday evening she
explained the death
of Pat Garret
”i heard he was blasted
with a shotgun
some goathearder
in revenge for Billy”
”not a bit of it”
Mrs Smith said
”he was shot in the back
of the skull
while urinating
about four miles east
off highway 70”
one rainy day influenza harbors
in my chest
i stop speaking and recoil to bed
she sets up a tray with
orange juice and hot soup
she sits in the chair
to describe how Michelangelo
saw david in the stone
when semester ends i
visit mountain meadows thawing
Canadian geese on wing over
glacier park
in fall i return to class schedule
after matriculation at NMSU
i call Mrs Smith
line disconnected
i visit the house
it has a for sale sign
i call her daughter
my mother went home she says
between the Rio Grande and the Gila
past the stone house
in the Black Range
where she and husband built
away from the well
where injury forced
move to city near daughter
sorry to hear that
things change so much
in three months
she was a labor of love
i walked until i saw a sign
room for let
Mrs Smith was standing
on her crutches in the corridor
sending a last message
from the
ethereal hallway


JOE SPEER is the editor of Beatlick News and runs the Beatlick website (http://www.beatlick.com )