She’s got chicken bones in the back seat
and one of those large decals about Jesus,
His Wonderful Saving Grace,
plastered onto the windshield so one wonders
how she can even see around the neon?
Her couch always smells like cheese,
but like manufactured cheese – not the real stuff,
like what aliens think cheese tastes like.
She’s got hands for going through garbage bags
full of clothes, a mouth that makes excuses
and poems out of profanity at a moment’s notice.
She knows how to work the system,
fake an injury, get out of a ticket,
fill out the government forms just right.
But she has no idea how to redeem herself
or how to give a gift, which is her
wagon rolling, tire thumping tragedy.

-- JD DeHart