POEM
Southern Romance
McKenna and Ethan’s Unlikely Love
McKenna lived next door to Ethan.
She knew her new neighbor’s name
because a piece of mail meant
for Ethan landed in her box,
so she returned the envelope.
Ethan’s eyes broke the record
for the bluest she’d ever seen.
Ethan finished moving boxes
and maroon couches
along with a pine kitchen table
and a glass coffee table.
Movers positioned a large TV
in the window that showed
the river flowing through
a creek and back to itself.
McKenna noticed his twin-sized bed
and knew he was single.
Welcome to the club, she thought,
smoking a cigarette.
The small bedroom TV told her
he didn’t watch much TV at night.
McKenna pondered him turning
pages in the Bible or a self-help book
on how to get a date.
Poor guy, she thought.
Ethan’s edges loosened her gaze
into a whisper of suspense.
McKenna dated guys
who drove fancy cars
that took her to high-end bars.
Her dates had hair
that they styled in place.
But Ethan worked on his cars
and raked his own fenced yard.
Ethan’s rugged dark hair
with a hint of gray stubble
along his jawline hadn’t
impressed her before.
She’d dated clean-shaven men.
Something about Ethan
made sense in a way
that she couldn’t make sense of.
Come September, the days turned shorter
but he’d still be fooling around with a car
or fixing an alternator for a friend.
But in the morning,
Ethan went to work
in a white dress shirt
with a red tie and tan slacks.
Ethan defined a walking contradiction.
If opposites could attract,
it’d be a chilly day in hell
before love planted seeds to sprout
its roots and blossom above the moisture
nourishing their bones.
But the Southern sky doesn’t lie.
McKenna sat on her porch,
smoking her cigarette
as she graded first-grade papers
or read an Allison Brennan novel.
She’d had teaching on her mind
since she was a kid.
McKenna couldn’t keep her eyes
on her own paper and noticed
Ethan sipped vitamin water
as he read the Bible.
She was unsure of God,
but thought it was nice
that he found comfort
in Jesus’ teachings.
Ethan grinned. “You aren’t that sneaky,” Ethan said, wiping his hands on a cloth.
“Excuse me?” McKenna said, almost offended. “I’m grading papers for my class.”
Ethan moved across his driveway and yard to the fence. “Sure,” he said. “I think you’re studying me.” He winked.
McKenna rolled her eyes. “Guys,” she said louder than she’d wanted to, “you’re are all the same.”
Ethan moved across the neatly trimmed yard and walked to her fence. “May I?”
McKenna swallowed hard. “It’s a free country.”
Ethan latched the gate behind him.
She arched a brow. “Was it that obvious?”
Ethan gave her the eye contact she’d missed
for the better part of five years. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“What?” McKenna said of him hitting too close to home. “I’m not scared of anything.”
She screwed up her face. “Who are these people who come by for car repairs?” McKenna skewered him with an ardent gaze.
Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I help people from the church I attend,” he said, shrugging. “Some of them can’t afford a mechanic. My dad taught me everything I needed to know.”
McKenna leaned forward. “And you’re proud of that?”
“What is it with you?” Ethan said, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Who hurt you?”
“I beg your pardon?” McKenna’s narrow eyes turned into crinkled slits. “
“What’s it to you?”
Ethan lifted his palms. “Just being friendly.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a public defender.” Ethan reached behind him for his wallet. He flipped through cards and credit cards to show her his bar card. “Here.” He handed her the card with grease stains.
McKenna received it and held it in the corner with two fingers. “I was wrong about you,” she said.
Ethan tucked his wallet back into his back pocket.
“You’re a good guy,” she said. “That’s something I’m not used to.” She tucked her long, blonde bangs behind her ear. “I just do my part, ma’am,” he said.
“Ma’am,” she said, playing with a loose strand of her hair, “that’s the first time I’ve been called that.”
McKenna asked Ethan over for a seat. She offered him a beer, but they settled on a glass of chardonnay.
“What the hell,” Ethan said. “It’s a Friday night.”
The more she talked to Ethan, the more she wanted him, and she knew it wasn’t just her that felt this way.
“I think I’m scared,” she said.
“What about?” Ethan sipped his wine.
“I thought you weren’t my type,” she said, moving damp strands of hair from her face, “but I was just scared because you are my type.”
“I knew I was your type,” he said, smiling.
“How so?” She crossed her legs.
“Your eyes warm my soul,” Ethan said, “and I can tell that mine do the same for you.”
McKenna’s eyes welled, and she blinked streams of purity across her cheeks. “I’ve been watching you every day for three years, and you’re everything the other guys aren’t,” she said. “You’re just what I need.”
“Do you believe now?”
“There is a God,” she said. “I believe it now.”
“I didn’t believe,” he said, “but I do now.”
“What made you believe?” McKenna’s ears perked.
“Because there’s no random chance in hell for someone as beautiful as you.”
McKenna folded her lips under her teeth and blushed hard. “And there’s no chance God didn’t bring you to me.”
“Or me you,” he said.
The couple moved through the sliding glass door
to watch the river flow through
a maze of evergreen trees.
The moon reflected its sliver as a smile
along the soft ripples.
McKenna put her glass on the picnic table and threw her arms around his neck. “This has been everything I’ve dreamed of,” she said, her eyes welled.
“And you’re everything that makes me believe,” he said. “I had doubts, but not anymore — thanks to you.”
McKenna’s lips quivered as she moved to kiss him.
Five years later, they’d kiss forever.
(© 2024 AC)
(Amazon Kindle, Spillwords, The Writers Club)
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