Slightly Retarded Bagboy Asking Out Check-out Girl

After she says "sorry, no"
to "arcade games and ice cream cones,"
she only longs for him to know

how her heart breaks too
in realizing honesty isn't
proportionate to intelligence

as she lies about the boyfriend
driving up from Boston
for homecoming weekend

and sees her rejection hurts more
because he'll never letter
in a varsity sport

or feel the breast of a girl
featured in the limericks
of the boys' private stall.

And, when he's then the one
apologizing for "just wanting
someone smarter than him,"

she only wishes to know
how to double-bag her own emotions
as she feels so dumb

for being the one
weeping at the end
of this transaction--

needing his shoulder to lean on--
accepting her offer to walk her
to he mother's Volkswagon--

where he guides her into the seat,
she thinks, gently as a bag of groceries,
as though he knows her compassion

and kindness are so fragile
now that they've been shaken
from temperature-controled aisles,

and he's thinking, too, of the widow, Mrs. Thompson,
whose ice cream sometimes doesn't survive
her long, slow, drive home....


(from Bio-luminescing ©2003 by Dennis Camire, Sheltering Pines Press)