81. Maxine (Myshkin, 2020) · free verse

“I’m not stupid,” she keeps repeating. Did someone call her that? Yes, her 83-year old boyfriend. The cigarette she had been smoking While crying Falls in the dirt by the side of the road And she just lets it be. My insides are still churning From all that I heard And cannot unhear And cannot stop thinking about. She is crying and smoking, Leaning against a roadside fence I stop to see if she needs help. The car is okay. She is not. She just needs a friend, Someone to hear her story. I open my heart and listen. She is fifty-nine, going on ten, Still feeling like a little girl on the inside. She moved from Kansas to these mountains To be with her sister, Who then died in a car accident. Today, one brother Was diagnosed with cancer, The same colon cancer That took her other brother. Three siblings within one year! These, incidentally, Are the same Older brothers Who molested her when she was nine. “I never got to be a virgin!” she cries. “I believe in the Lord... But why did he allow that?” It’s not fair. Gut punch. Addicted to heroin for 17 years, Sober for 18 Thanks to 12 steps and God, The same God that six months ago Would not take her, When she wished to die And flipped her car. She’s been so bad, Selling her body as a prostitute, And other things. She wonders why God still loves her. I mention a Kris Kristofferson country song I love. “He knows God,” she says. We sing softly, together. “Why me, Lord? What have I ever done To deserve even one…” She calls me sir, She doesn’t want to get in trouble with the law (Whatever that means). Where is she sleeping tonight? In her car, a white Oldsmobile She shares with Buck, A sweet deaf bulldog, Unwanted by anyone else but her. Forty-five minutes later, I say my goodbyes, I put my number in her phone, Correcting the digits her shaky fingers mistyped. The friend she was trying to meet Pulls up: “Thank you, brother.” "Will she be okay?" I ask stupidly. He gets into her car, His SUV has someone else in it, Both cars drive off With missing license plates.