CURTAINS

      Cousins of my ex-wife live so far out in the wheat
fields, that they don't have curtains. They haven't had
curtains for forty years. That's always made me think of
incest and they look it; small heads, close set eyes bright
as glass abandoned to the desert sun, an eighty year old,
boxcar shaped aunt that kills chickens with her feet. With
her toes actually.
     To be fair she may not be a blood relative. But she
lives there, out back with the tractors, in a shed.
     They piss off the front porch at high noon. Women just
should not do that. I'm sorry.
     I'm not sorry I married Sarah. Sorry is far too light a
word.
     Wretchedly, pitiful-grief comes to mind and passes back
out, like a bat fleeing a vast cave, without touching either
side of the darkness.
     You think that perhaps I jest? Have you EVER seen a old
woman kill a chicken with two gnarled big toes and THEN squat
and piss off the front porch of a rambling shack as she
stares out across miles of golden wheat with a sad but maybe
sexy look on her great, grey jowls, that makes you wonder if
you're next. Believe me, next for what just does not matter.
     You can bet your ass that SHE doesn't drive a Toyota!
     Sarah and I (new to the marriage bed) spent our first
Thanksgiving with these cousins. We had chicken. Chicken was
an old family tradition, I was appraised.
     And yes it was a come-to-meet-the-family dinner. Her
uncle John took one look at my Toyota and yucked. "That there
thang aint big enough to get a hard on in!"
     John was the brains of the tribe, the witty and worldly
one. Or so I was told. I was told...many things. Some things
I believed, some....some I believed but wished I'd never
heard.
     Sarah has a dark side. Even next to her cousins ( Sarah
does not speak of her mother and father. Not a word.).  She
likes to shit on flowers. When we were going out, I guess I
kind of just put that off as some kind of being in tune with
nature. I mean she did wear her SAVE-THE-WHALES tee-shirt
every where we went.
     And she eats a lot, and I mean a LOT, of veggys.
     She also castrated her cat.    All by herself...with her Swiss Army Knife. And not with the blade either.
     Yeah, that put me off.
     But I still married her.
     Now that we're divorced I don't go out with girls.
     Yeah............Curtains.