Cold Orange Crush
This about longing:
It would have been July.
In July, the heat’s a new thing still,
intense and strong.
There’s a rightness of heat and July.
It would have been July.
The two-lane blacktop crumbles at the edge
where cars pull off the road
and into the gravel lot.
The tar bubbles trap ants and the black goo sticks to your bare feet,
and the dusty rocks in the parking lot are hot from the sun,
and sharp.
And I scrunch my toes against the heat, and hop across the hot dust and rocks between the car and the store,
and I have one thing in mind:
I want an Orange Crush.
I have been thinking about that brown bottle
for it must have been an hour.
Someplace on the other side of Hohenwald
I saw a sign.
I’ve been wanting one ever since.
That sweet orange taste in the brown bottle
that fits my hand.
I have been tasting that in my mind for miles.
That’s the thing about longing.
I could just see that red cooler
full of bottles of all shapes and sizes waiting
in the cold, cold metal-smelling water,
and I could already hear the nickle clunk
and slide its way down to the coin bin to land with all its cousins, and hear the thunk of the catch releasing the cooler’s lid,
and the clining of the bottles bumping into one another.
I could already feel the cold water dripping from the bottle
and running down my hand
while I pry off the cap.
I had that drink half finished before I ever got there.
That’s the thing about longing.
When I pushed open that screen door to Dotson’s
and stepped onto that cool concrete
and caught the smell of boloney coming from the back
and tobacco from the front,
I was ready for my Orange Crush.
This was going to be good.
I knew it would be good.
And then I saw the Tom’s rack.
The red wire rack,
with the clear, crinkling plastic packages
full of peanuts.
Peanuts sparkling with salt.
It was then the truth came over me.
I knew then what I really wanted,
really needed
was a bag of peanuts
and a Coke.
That’s the thing about longing.
___For anyone who doesn’t know of the practice, there is something incomparable about the combination of salty peanuts carefully sleeved into cold Coke or RC. Somehow Pepsi won’t do.
[...] An orange crush poem [...]