Lita Hooper

“Love Worn

In a tavern on the Southside of Chicago


a man sits with his wife. From their corner booth

each stares at strangers just beyond the other's shoulder,

nodding to the songs of their youth. Tonight they will not fight.

Thirty years of marriage sits between them

like a bomb. The woman shifts

then rubs her right wrist as the man recalls the day

when they sat on the porch of her parents' home.

Even then he could feel the absence of something

desired or planned. There was the smell

of a freshly tarred driveway, the slow heat,

him offering his future to folks he did not know.

And there was the blooming magnolia tree in the distance—

its oversized petals like those on the woman's dress,

making her belly even larger, her hands

disappearing into the folds.

When the last neighbor or friend leaves their booth

he stares at her hands, which are now closer to his,

remembers that there had always been some joy. Leaning

closer, he believes he can see their daughter in her eyes”
― Lita Hooper