I got two problems. One, <br />I never see the sun <br />and two, if I did, <br />I couldn't take it, never could. <br />Now, my sister? Out one day <br />and brown the next. That's the way <br />my father was. We never <br />took vacations but he used to steer <br />on Sundays with one arm <br />out the window. Get dark as a black man. <br />Something in his blood, I guess. <br />Once I bought me a mess <br />of tanning cream, but something <br />kept me from using it. <br />He's been dead a whole <br />year. They say there's not a soul <br />on the streets this hour, <br />but the souls are just now rousing. <br />Yes Ma'am, when I see daylight I slide <br />into my coffin and close the lid. <br />Cooler that way. They say if you can survive <br />a summer in this heat, you're a native. <br />My brother's child? She claims to be one, <br />but I tell her she's got Made in Japan <br />stamped all over her keister. <br />Hey lady, you still on Eastern <br />time? You can have it. Yesterday <br />the TV reporter in Cincinnati <br />was three feet in snow. I phoned <br />my old drinking buddy back home <br />to rub it in. Lied and said I was out <br />today without a shirt. Barefoot. <br />He said you can keep those hundred <br />degrees. I said you don't have to shovel <br />a heat wave. Young lady, you okay? <br />Looks like you're fading. The longest day <br />I ever lived was the night <br />I left for Vietnam. What a sight, <br />would you look at that? Damn <br />jackhammers at three a.m. <br />They sure like to play in the dirt here. <br />Yes Ma'am. It's the same everywhere. <br />The shortest distance between <br />two points is always under construction.<br /><br />Rebecca McClanahan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/autobiography-of-the-cab-driver-who-picked-me-up-at-a-phoenix-hotel-to-catch-a-four-a-m-flight-and-began-to-speak-in-almost-rhyming-couplets/
