She doesn’t know why he looks familiar
until, as he does a soliloquy,
she realizes he had tried to sell her
a used Taurus last fall at Modern Ford.
She’d been interested, but he’d pushed too hard,
like Tim at prom. She bought a Jeep instead.
He’d seemed surprised when she walked off the lot,
as if she was breaking some agreement,
as if simply coming meant commitment,
but that’s not how it works, not there, not here,
not in the backseat and not in this seat.
It’s likely she’ll leave at intermission
because, despite all his histrionics,
she isn’t buying it this time either.
A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities. He has published four collections of poetry with Press 53. His fifth collection, This Miraculous Turning, will be released in September 2014. More information is available at www.josephrobertmills.com and he blogs regularly at www.josephrobertmills.blogspot.com.