—I’M RATING YOU FIVE STARS

  

Cards

 

      The guy in the card section of the supermarket has beads of sweat dotting his forehead, an oily ellipse dripping to his chin, disheveled gray hair, his breathing wonky, forced, like a lion who’s missed its kill.

      “It’s our anniversary tomorrow,” he says, over his shoulder, not looking or even acknowledging me while I stand inches away, his voice a coffee grinder almost out of battery life.

      “We’ll be three years tomorrow,” I say, because I feel naked, fully dressed in this store, but I have to say something.

      “Kids. That’s cute. That’s how it starts out.”

      I lean toward the shelf but then arch back. Everything feels uneven. “Um, how it starts?”

      “Have lots. Have five kids at least,” he says, still without ever turning, his Roostertail hair staring back at me like a finger pointing.

      “So, I’m just trying to get her a card, you know?” I say.

      “Pick the best one you can find, the words only matter if they matter to you, but when you get home, spritz it with your cologne. Make it authentic. Fuck all the commercial bullshit.”

      “Huh?”

      “Leave it under her pillow, or if she’s a tough sleeper, leave it on the bathroom counter by her toothbrush so it’s what she sees first thing.”

      “Well, thanks, thank you for the advice.”

      “I just found the one I need.”

      “A card? What’s it say, if I can be so bold to ask?”

      He finally looks at me, a gleam of yellow-orange light in his left eye. “Ha. It’s poetry man. It’s what saves your life when you don’t think you can make it, even if you don’t get the point.”

      I don’t want to squirm, but I do. I shiver up and down in the aisle of the supermarket like an eel that really has to pee before finally asking, “Yeah, okay, I guess, but what does it say? The card you selected?”

      “Who cares? It’s poetry. It’s only ever crows and robins at the cemetery.”

      “What?”

      “If my wife was still alive, I’d skip the whole card thing and just try to write her a poem. She’d laugh about how bad it was. She’d laugh from the gut, like a sailor. But, yeah, if she was still here, I’d write her a poem. Fuck these cards.”