I have a car,
I’ll help you move,
he says, avuncular,
pointedly without motive.
Over dinner, he talks big.
How life is hard.
How only I can fix him,
by spreading my legs.
I am half his age,
yet he grasps
at authority, at maturity.
His stories are rehearsed.
His wife is dying,
he tells me, but even she
is just a prop, a stage hand
in the drama of his need.
Big Combo Trailer. By Allied Artists, via Wikimedia Commons
Caroline Hutchinson 