SONOFABITCH

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

I remember the first time.

It was a crisp Omaha morning, and I was four--

playing in my front yard when three boys came along.

They were BIG kids--maybe eight or nine--

and one of them said: HEY, YA LITTLE SONOFABITCH!

Just casual like...

I asked him what that word meant,

and he said: Go ask yer mama, sonofabitch!

So I did.

NOTHING...it means NOTHING, she said.

And: Who told you that word?

I led her outside to meet my new friends,

but they had disappeared.

And I couldn't understand why they had gone.

Years later there was a girl named Mary

who lived with me in the Hotel San Cristobal

overlooking the ocean in Old San Juan.

There was a little Italian place nearby

where we would drink wine and she would call me "Ducky."

Then one night we were arguing in bed

and she said:YOU SONOFABITCH

and tore my ring from her finger and threw it against the wall.

Then she disappeared.

And I couldn't understand why she had gone.

Time passed and one day my best old childhood buddy

came to visit me in Tucson. I met him

at the airport and he said: YOU OL' SONOFABITCH!

We caught up on things and downed a few,

then we downed a few more.

Before you knew it the days had flown by

and I was taking him back to the airport

where he did this funny bit, singing: We'll meet again...

don't know where, don't know when...

And then he disappeared.

Two weeks later I got a phone call--

he'd been in a bad car wreck and was lying

in a coma in an Amarillo hospital.

Two days hence he departed this world

without regaining consciousness.

And I didn't understand why he had gone.

But all that was long ago...

and things are gonna be different now!

So I've made me a new rule.

If you're gonna call me a sonofabitch...

you've got to promise not to leave.