1989: Willsboro, NY, A-1 Market
Three sisters
walked arm-in-arm
down the meat aisle,
past lean cuts packed
beneath frosted plastic
wrap, where teenage boys
wore aprons tied not too tightly
but enough to keep their stomachs
down, because you should not breathe
in front of a girl, or girls, especially ones
who wore the same red bubble vests and blue
corduroys, whose mother looked like Catherine Bach,
whose father, at that moment, lowered his snow plow to spark
the asphalt, pushing that dirty white toward the bridge, where you
told those daughters to meet you, once it got warm, once you got the nerve
Nick Ripatrazone’s newest book is The Fine Delight: Postconciliar Catholic Literature (Cascade Books). He is the author of two books of poetry, Oblations and This Is Not About Birds (Gold Wake Press), and two forthcoming novellas, This Darksome Burn (firthFORTH Books) and We Will Listen For You (Civil Coping Mechanisms). His website is www.nickripatrazone.com.
