Steemit Slam #1 / My Best Friend's Cousin

My Best Friend’s Cousin

She is heavy boned and freckled with shyness,
visiting from Michigan while her parents
are patching things up.

I accept a blind date.
The radio sputters with uncertain weather.

Her hair, like Irish Setter ears, clowns
with her eyes. She is eager
to get out of the house
and go to the movies.

Our Junior Mints rattle
like grade school maracas.

She whispers, “poor cartoon Tom
wouldn’t survive on a farm,
he is not a good mouser.”

Her fingertips push grains of salt
over the edge the table. I sense that she
likes me and laugh as she asks how
it feels to be handsome.

A gust of wind fluffs her pink earmuffs.
My leather shoes crunch frozen snow
as I fumble with keys. The door of my father's
old Fairlane opens like lake ice.

She slides on the vinyl and cuddles
my shoulder. A Thunderbird passes,
the driver is the councilman’s daughter
and waves to be seen.

A snow plow scrapes down the streets.
I park by the curb, give her a kiss
as if asking a question.

She guides my hand under her sweater,
then says that her bus leaves tomorrow
and asks me to write.

note: My Best Friend's Cousin is a re-write of a poem I first had published in Midwestern Gothic Literary Journal.