The Red Olds
This is the only year
in either of our lives
when you’ll be exactly twice my age
and I’ll be exactly half of yours.
I remember how you and I
stopped once at Harry’s to get gas.
It was spring and I was 25.
You had 30 years on me then,
have always had 30 on me.
I watched the pump
as you went in to pay.
A red Oldsmobile pulled up.
A blonde about your age got out
in sunglasses and a white leather jacket
as you were coming back.
When you spoke to her
your voice took on the tone of a young man
talking to a young woman.
Warm,
charming,
imbued with fun and life.
I had never seen this woman before,
but it was obvious you knew her
from when you were a man younger than I was then,
before your wife, my mother,
before your kids.
“Women are a lot of trouble,” you told me once,
but for all I ever knew you were a faithful man.
I’m not asking now and I wasn’t asking then.
When we got back in the truck
I let you have your moment,
let the conversation go back to work,
or my future,
or the weather in the east.
Now I write this on a bus in Korea
and we have tried to fix most of the things
I broke between us.
That something I still want from you
is to know what you were really like
as a young man,
before me,
before life,
before all the weight.
I didn’t ask you
because I didn’t want to hear you tell me something,
not that you would have lied,
but maybe you wouldn’t have told me all the truth.
I wanted you to have what she awakened in you,
so I sat there and didn’t ask who she was
and we drove home
and went back to work.
