Slightly Retarded Bagboy Asking Out Checkout Girl

by Dennis Camire

After she says "sorry, no"
to "arcade games and ice cream cones,"
she only wishes he was smart enough

to know how he's hurting himself
by asking out someone with
early acceptance to Princeton--

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 this rejection hurts more
because he'll never letter
in a varsity sport

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

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

she only wishes she was able
to double-bag her own emotions
as she feels so dumb

for being the one
who's weeping at the end
of this transaction--

needing his shoulder to lean on--
accepting her offer to walk her
back to her 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-controlled aisles,

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

dennis camire is a poet, teacher, and bartender living in kennebunk maine. his poems have appeared in the mid-american review, words and images, firefly review, animus, a sense of place: collected maine poems, and other small journals. currently he is touring with the poetry trio "Trinity" on their "apocryphal gospel revival tour." he can be reached at denniscamire@hotmail.com