The Whale, Chapter 4

a novel in verse

Helga drove a ’97
Buick Skylark that was made in heaven.
That’s how she felt about it, anyhow:
Cloudy blue and well-traveled,
A ding on every corner but nothing
Serious, nothing in need of attention.
It looked good in the garage’s shadows

And was malaise-proof in the midday sun.
She popped the trunk and laid the gun
Gently in among the bags
And blankets and jumper cables neatly
Coiled there. What was it Chekhov said?
If jumper cables are seen in chapter one
A battery must die in chapter two?

Such was the nature of Helga’s musings
Based on long ago perusings
Of Russian authors assigned in college
When she and Joe rushed in like fools
Not fearing to tread where angels danced
Across the border into Idaho
To get married and start a crazy life.

She took a deep breath and firmly shut 
The trunk, not sure exactly what
She’d do with the gun but definitely not
Take it to the shooting range
Where she and Ben had gone to try it out
A few weeks back and there encountered
Some good old boys talking old boy shit

About Ms. Harris sleeping her way
To the top of the pile of political hay
And how she was "woke and a joke."
"Not bad looking, but come on."
Ben had spoken up and simply said,
"She sure did hand that guy his ass in the debate."
Helga had simply reddened with blue anger.

The cardboard target with paper bullseye
Stapled on made Helga’s mental sky
Conjure up a poster of the buffoon
Holding a bible upside down,
Captioned, "Make America Pray Again."
"I'd like to staple his face on the carboard,"
She thought, "And shoot. And shoot again."

That was her idea of the morning
But now with the golden sun adorning
The autumnal south, she revised her plan
And decided to take what was left of Joe
(His ashes, that is) and the heavy gun
And lovingly release them into the flow
Of the deep and powerful Columbia River.

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