Settlement

The storm freed you.

It left the house and car destroyed;
soon enough, you had to leave the job as well.

Then, unexpected as a late love
when you’d abandoned the thought
of such a thing,
came two fat insurance checks
to replace the wreckage,
and a wild idea: sell the lot,
get a decent but cheaper replacement car
and clear out to live on what was left
for as far along the road as you could go,
running over everything wrong
in your life,
pressing the gas pedal
down on its head.

People dream of lottery tickets
and inhertances.  People dream
of lawsuits and windfalls.  You
never bothered to dream,
yet there you were — modestly rich,
clean and clear with nothing
to hold you.  Every bill paid, every string
cut, all as unexpected as a late love —
and like a late love, unlikely to be anything
but a last chance.

The last postcard came six months ago,
from Omaha.  “Thinking of you all
back there,” is all it said.  Back here,
all we think about
is you.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations