Memorial Day

Plant dander spins the air, wind spitting sawdust curls across my windshield like star-
shards blown out a comet’s ass.
The President’s on the radio again, making jokes with his press corps, using the
nicknames he’s given them.
I’m driving west, cutting down back roads past mud-rutted pig farms and hills studded
with tree stumps—the natural, misshapen wreckage of our human work.
All year I’ve lied to my doctor, perfected the art of nonchalance. Or I’ve told her the
truth, but giggled when she asked questions. Sheepish is an appropriate adjective. She
might say cavalier.
I pass a field where black and white heifers glow in the just-dead sun like chess pieces
forgotten and abandoned mid-game.
The President’s laughing so hard now (he’s made a brilliant pun) that he doesn’t hear
their questions: But Mr. President, if I could direct your attention back to—
Last week my gynecologist showed me pictures she took of my uterus: scar tissue
whisping up like signal fire smoke and in other spots black holes stretched on my flesh.
I’m like a dog who trashes the house and then cowers when her master comes home: I’m
always ready to deny exactly what I’m guilty of.
I pull the car over next to a drainage ditch, turn off the radio. I can hear the wind now,
moving its big hands over the roof, fingering the door handles as if their smallness makes
them precious.
Intention doesn’t really matter once you’ve been charged with a crime. All the evidence
only makes you feel more far away, like you’re looking at a picture of a red moon in
another galaxy, one with a problem you don’t know anything about.

Keetje Kuipers