Jenny Hanover and a Thousand Lives
In another life I am a terrible alcoholic and a cruise ship magician
I wear platinum rings and leather bracelets
And go down on barbacks and line cooks below deck.
In another life I am a rodeo clown
I smudge grease paint on my face
and bake banana bread for a mariachi band
I hand flyers to pretty faces on their way to revivals.
In another life I am a thirty-year-old counselor at a sleepaway camp
I watch teenagers sneak behind fallen-down sheds
and come back with swollen lips
I get in a Saturn and go back to my mother’s house at the end of the summer to work at the Radio Shack.
In another life I am a mail carrier on Santa Anna street
and my mother lives in London, Ontario
I write letters to my childhood best friend under a false name
and run my lips over the seal before I drop them in her uncle’s mailbox.
In another life, I am a teenage boy who is sniffing model glue
and getting ready to piss under the bleachers of my little brother’s football game
Looking for nickels in my jeans pockets
to throw at my neighbor’s bicycle spokes .
In another life, I am an insurance saleswoman who cheats at cards
my husband digs graves at St. Mary Therese
he dug one for my brother once
then another time, again.
In another life, I will always find myself
in every life, there I am
I don’t know what it is, what thread I’m woven out of
Something garish, something cruel or maybe unforgiving
spun to find pleasure, spun to open doors for girls in sundresses
spun to walk on my knees across a gravel pool deck
In another life, there I am.