THE MUSE by Miller Williams

Driving south on U.S. 71
forty miles frm Fort Smith
I heard a woman speak from the back seat.
"You want a good idea for a closing line?"
I recognised the voice.
"Where did you come from?"
"I wiggled in back there when you stopped for gas.
You'd better pull over."
She knew about the cards I kept in my pocket
to scribble on whenever she came around.
We'd been through this before.
I bumped down from the blacktop and stopped the car.
Between a couple of oaks and a yellow line,
above the howl and sizzle of passing traffic
she said some words. I waited. She looked out the
window.
"Well," I said. "Is that it?"
"It's all I have," she said. "Can't you ever do
anything for yourself?"
"I listen," I said. "That's what I'm supposed to do."
She took a slow breath and got out of the car.
"I'll try to get you something.
I'm going to walk around for a little while.
If you leave me here I'll forget I ever saw you."
"I won't leave you," I said. So I'm sitting here
between the darkening road and the pinoak trees,
a 3 X 5 card in one hand, a pen in the other,
beginning to feel vulnerable and a little foolish
like a man waiting for more toilet paper
thinking he may have been left there and forgotten.