Today's poem is Single Wide by Jeri Theriault. It is read by Julia Bouwsma.
Single Wide
you hate those long nights when
you can’t sleep you have only so
many calendar squares left only so
many hours moving like boxcars
into the slaughter yard cattle
spooked by what has happened
what will happen & you understand
at last what your mother said after
she bought the single wide 12 x 60
in a little park by the river with
paved driveways even a few trees
not so bad you thought as you
admired the symmetry of mobile
homes solidly immobile trailers
we used to call them as in trailer
court/trailer trash for her a kind
of do-it-yourself retirement home
& look a neighbor’s geraniums
space for tulips or tomatoes tiny
deck & inside a good place to pile
up books & watch Jeopardy to
shut out the near darkness her
solitaire hand on the table
crossword tv guide & for the
longest time you wouldn’t consider
what brought her here wouldn’t let
yourself hear what she didn’t say
when she said she was rehearsing
for her coffin like your father also
alone in his 200 square feet
rumbled by night trains near the
crossing three rooms if you count
the galley kitchen & bathroom
stacks of losing lottery tickets &
paperback titles you wouldn’t even
know about until after