Zero At the Bone

Zero At the Bone

No ties was all that Ruby ever asked,
and all of substance that she ever got.
Money, of course: at random intervals,
she would phone us for money to come home.
She knew, but never said, we owed her that;
she didn't have to say—we knew it, too.
She always kept a nickel for the phone.

She only came home when she was too ill
or too addicted to recuperate
alone in some hole in a foreign wall,
Chicago or Detroit or Yazoo City.
The rent she paid was that she told us tales
of her adventures; a natural story-teller,
she made us laugh till everybody cried.

And then one day the wind would change and whisper,
“Ruby! Ruby!” and soon she would be gone,
leaving long-distance numbers on odd scraps
of paper, where we might or might not reach her.
Marriage she tried, on more than one occasion,
and once a step-child that she feigned to worship--
all, all abandoned in her frantic flight.

And all that she abandoned grieved for her,
and called and wrote the bogus addresses;
for everybody loved and envied her--
the love was open but the envy secret:
If we could be unchained and free like Ruby,
we'd manage better and enjoy it more,
not hurting those who loved us. So we thought.

And it was guilt that kept us sending money
or going to her rescue now and then.
Sometimes we wouldn't hear from her for years
and feared she might be dead; but then the phone
would ring, and we would send her twice the fare
that she required, hoping she wouldn't waste it,
and fixed the best room in the house for Ruby.

We buried her far from her violator,
and wept because we had let the villain live
and die in prison, instead of loading the shotgun
and blowing the son-of-a-bitch to kingdom come.

By JRC, August 13, 2012