Dear Outlaw,
Cheryl Quimba
It is three degrees where I am staying now
but I can’t say where I saw you last (the docks?
. . . . . . . the theater
. . . . . . . exit? the pharmacy
when I coughed and dropped
my handbag?)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I am down to
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . six dollars and have already bought
a soda and a hard-boiled
egg today. Remember when Randy said you looked
like a Spaniel and you threw a tin can
at his head and he ducked but his ear got banged
anyway? You were
. . . . . . . so mad I thought your freckles
would burn off
but later
you laughed and I pinched your forearm
like a kiss that would bruise.
I am looking for a job but no one wants
a secretary that can’t type fast. I am
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . practicing but the cold and the boys
coming around
don’t help.
When are you going to come back this way
again? I’ve been saving bits of meat
in the freezer
for a stew.
. . . . . . . Love always, Your
. . . . . . . Lady at the window
From Nobody Dancing
Available from Publishing Genius (releasing this week)
Read more poems from the book here
Also available via Small Press Distribution (soon)
Cheryl Quimba lives in Buffalo, New York. She is the author of the chapbooks Scattered Trees Grow in Some Tundra (Sunnyoutside Press) and, with Joe Hall, May I Softly Walk: The Santa Fe Journals, a digital chapbook from Poetry Crush.
