Fall 2009

June 3rd Galveston, TX

by Elijah Rene Mendoza

I watched him drag my girlfriend up the sidewalk
While I stood there, mouth open, sizing up
Her father who wasn’t bigger but glared back
So angry I forgot the lines around
His eyes. He dragged her back into their house,
And they argued in Spanish like I didn’t know
What they were saying, but I’d heard enough,
And a month later I came back and took
Her home with me, carrying suitcases full
As if I’d robbed the place, and we played house
All summer, and she finally turned nineteen.
We’d been together about six months by then,
But this isn’t the story I want to tell right now.

I drove her to the doctor because she said
It wasn’t her time of the month and she’d been cramping.
I dropped her off and didn’t think too much
About it. She was always feeling sick,
And that was cute at first, but got old fast.
I picked her up from her friend’s place that night
And she was high and I was pissed because
I didn’t let her smoke without me there.
She didn’t speak. I finally asked. She said
It was a miscarriage and spent the next
Few nights with me in bed moaning while I
Held her. I didn’t doubt her story then.
We fucked like every time was going to be
Better than the last. I wanted sex
To be so wild she’d only think of me.

Of course we didn’t last forever, but
I still remember how she cried that night
And said, I would have loved it, even though
I don’t know if we would have. We’d driven east
To the coast for her birthday and put our feet
In Galveston sand and talked about the ways
That life’s unfair when she told me, I love
You, and it felt like we would never have
To worry again. That was her first time:
The parking lot of a half-deserted beach,
Kicking around the back of my Gallant
Windows down to hear the black waves crashing
As we held on to one another, breathless,
Cowering when we saw a pair of headlights.