Standing in the TJ Maxx checkout line
fluorescent lights humming like cicadas,
I stare at a display of modern salvation:
sleep gummies, alertness pills,
“Stamina” powders, menstrual mercy,
gas relief,
all the physical poetry of being human,
alphabetized under SALE.
I turn to the young mother behind me,
her buggy stacked with frosted wreaths
and peppermint scented illusions.
I ask:
“You trust this stuff more than the gas station racks?”
She laughs without looking up:
“Honey, I barely trust gravity.”
And suddenly,
I’m back at Jake’s Texaco in Greenbottom,
a kind of community safe house
for boys who liked Elvis,
pickup trucks,
and the idea that life
was about to begin any day now.
And Jake, our local wizard of
life-skills wisdom and moral confusion,
kept the good stuff behind the counter:
rubbers, apple wine in Mason jars,
pint crocks of moonshine,
Playboys ragged at the edges,
and one deck of French poker cards,
strictly medical, showing nekkid people
engaged in cardio activities
unfamiliar to us.
One hot July day, a buddy and I,
fueled by hope and ignorance,
sent five dollars cash
to an ad from the back of Argosy Magazine
for a packet of Spanish Fly,
advertised as a romance enhancer,
but we would’ve been happy
if a girl simply nodded at us.
It never arrived.
We checked the mailbox every day
as if it cradled
the future of our hearts.
Sixty years later,
I see that same friend at funerals,
reunions, and campfires.
He always pauses and asks,
“Has it showed up yet?”
And I always answer,
“Yes, in a way.
Just not by mail.”
Greg Clary is a retired college professor who was born and raised in Turkey Creek, West Virginia. He now resides in the northern Appalachia Pennsylvania Wilds.
His photographs have appeared in The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Rattle, Hole in the Head Review, Pine Mt Sand & Gravel, Tiny Seed Journal, Watershed Journal, About Place, Change Seven, Appalachian Lit, and many more.
His writing has been published in Rye Whiskey Review, The Bridge Literary Journal, Northern Appalachia Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Waccamaw Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Trailer Park Quarterly, Black Shamrock Magazine, Rust Belt Review, and Tobeco.
His new book of photographs and poetry, “The Vandalia in Me”, was published by Meraki Press and is available on-line at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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