‘Newspaper Delivery Man’

He drives slowly by at a quarter to 5:00,

windows rolled down, looking for sidewalks,

feeling the thick, damp darkness of yards,

startling for a moment when a stray cat, or coyote crosses the road in front of his old car’s headlights. What is he thinking of as he works? How soon he will finish and get home to his bed or his toast and egg?

Will he remember the woman who opened the door to him that Sunday noon

when he delivered the missing paper?

His eyebrows had lifted in surprise, then a smile creased his face as he glanced over her shoulder, curious to see inside.

We’d chatted for a minute, about how early my husband got up every morning, how the first thing he did was go outside for the paper.

At last the delivery man could see more than a dark house-shape looming up

from a sidewalk, white in moonlight

with the sound of a train whistle moaning

a couple of lonely miles away. Native Texan Patricia S. Bigelow is a Pushcart nominee. Her poems have appeared in the Texas Poetry Calendar and “Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems.”

Poetry editor: Jim LaVilla-Havelin