Joe Cottonwood
Joe Cottonwood repairs homes and writes poems in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest books of poetry are Foggy Dog and Random Saints.
Elena’s Dollar
Elena who paints her eyes green
giving greenbacks to Greenpeace
abandoned by husband (she blames pollution)
and by friends (a bit strident, she is)
hires me when a water pipe detaches
from her one room shack which
is sliding down a green hillside.
Elena is none too happy about any of it:
the slow landslide like a lover’s betrayal,
the emergency repair charge of $100
though anybody else would charge $300.
I tell her it’s my “friendly rate,”
though she’s no friend.
She pays with a sheaf of ones and fives
plus a jar of quarters and dimes.
“Count if you don’t trust me.”
I tell her it’s about accuracy not trust
so I count while she scowls and then
I give back one quarter, two dimes.
Back home early. Rose is there.
Idly fingering the money she says
“Elena needs to get loved or at least laid
but how do you hug a cocklebur?”
She finds an extra dollar which I should return
but the kids come home, the dog needs a walk,
shoes and paws are wet, dinner needs
to cook and serve.
When I finally see Elena she says
to keep that greenback, she has cancer
and it won’t be long, anything left will go to
the hospital’s giant sucking treasury.
“You should have charged me more.
I’ll probably never see you again.”
She blames pollution. Okay, okay,
I’ll donate a dollar to Greenpeace.
