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YISKA RECALLS
Yiska rests on her bed,
smoking a cigarette.
The sky is dull,
the room darkened.
She inhales,
watches the smoke,
she's just exhaled,
rise ceiling wards.
Her husband is out,
fishing, whoring,
who knows, or cares.
She exhales again,
at times like this
she reflects
on her young days,
her schoolgirl years.
Naaman was a love
back then.
School crush thing
some thought.
But no,
more than that.
She inhales so deeply
that it seems
her whole body
is filled
with nicotine and smoke.
Naaman kissed good.
That time on the field.
Lips and tongue.
She exhales and smiles.
He'd be in his 30s now,
a year older than she.
She can still,
if she shuts her eyes at night,
see him as he was.
Even when her husband
is giving her a quickie,
she thinks on Naaman,
imagines it's him on top,
not her husband's sad efforts.
She inhales
and closes her eyes.
He is there
in her mind still.
Even on the day
she married,
she hoped Naaman
would show
and whisk her away
on the back
of a motorcycle,
her white dress
flapping in the wind,
she giving her groom
to be, an up you sign
of middle finger.
But he didn't show.
She knew he wouldn't;
she'd not seen
since he left school,
the year before she.
Moved away some place.
She exhales
and smiles out smoke.
When she goes shopping
in other towns,
she wonders
if she'll meet Naaman there,
bump into him
on an aisle,
next to cereals or cheeses.
She recalls that time
in the school between lessons,
seeing him,
and wanting him
to drag her into some room
and kiss her
and do things.
But he just smiled
and walked on
and into a classroom,
leaving her hot
and gagging for it
(a term some girls
used back then).
What if he had?
Some empty room
in the school?
That day would have been
burned into her memory
if he had.
As it was,
she walked on,
to her boring art class,
bubbling
with upset hormones.
She sighs,
opens her eyes,
and moans.
