Fifth Wheel Legacy Poem by Roger Gerald Hicks

Fifth Wheel Legacy



Even after a quarter century the fading image
of heron my stoop flusters me.My wife had
deserted with our children. Struggling to launch a new me,
aching for answers, for new dreams; an anamnesis,
this feral blond- mouth meandering over her face-
materializes at my door.

"Ralph's been killed." She intones the words
like distant
tolling bells."Train. Truck exploded.No
portrait. Found a snapshot negative.Maybe-
Can you make it big...for the funeral? " As I hug
her shuddering body, my finger tips inhale the
scent of her hair. Our first embrace- all our
past affair never more than innuendo. Or so I
had assumed.

I rock the developer tray until all the image
is teased from the photo paper, and the tiny negative
grudgingly yields
a suitable eight-by-ten. Ralph's red-illuminated
features furnish meager personality clues. Small
stature, stocky, cocky, homely. All I'll glean, 'til
his son doubles in age.

Our lives, the photographer, the blond re-join
like roots
of opposing trees entwining under a murmuring
rivulet.I'm introduced as "an old friend."

Tough, but accidents happen, I overhear. She's
set. Insurance will choke the mortgage. Kids
won't want.

But months on months, hair tightly braided &
pinned, pale lips in tattered jeans, she grieves -
like the Mojave pines for vegetation. Sits dark
hours, Ralph's blue-black magnum at hand, dull
eyes piercing the wall.

Ever apprehensive, I
clown. She snorts - occasionally - but never
relaxes in my embrace; feeds, but never
kisses me.

I just can't believe, she mutters one late
evening, barely audible over the low moan of
FM country,
he really went and did it.

Sunday, November 12, 2017
Topic(s) of this poem: widow,mourning
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
After a trucker is killed in a horrific accident, his mourning window wants to take her own life as well.
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
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Roger Gerald Hicks

Roger Gerald Hicks

Bakersfield, California
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