Dennis Trudell: Holiday Tale

A woman has never told her husband
nor anyone else about the love note
she received thirty years ago. It was
unsigned, and after guessing often, 
often about who in town sent it, she has
long accepted that she’ll never know.
The note was short, four sentences: “I 
love you deeply and expect I always will. 
You have a family and so I’ll keep my 
distance. Each 4th of July I’ll phone 
at 10 a.m. and hang up after one ring, 
to let you know it’s still true. If it’s 
busy, I’ll ring at 11 & so on.” This 
was typed, as was her name and address, 
postmarked locally. She and family 
were out of town a few times on that 
holiday over the years, but on the rest 
of them she’d waited for that single 
ring, and it came. They moved after a 
third child was born—the phone still 
rang the next 4th, making her realize 
how much she counted on that, wanting 
nothing more from him. Their children 
left home and had children of their 
own. Now she is fifty-six years old 
and woke on this 4th of July thinking 
about a man no doubt at least that old: 
she feels certain it’s a man. She may 
have walked past him again this week, 
greeted him or not. She isn’t positive
the ring will occur; he could have died
in the past year. Or be dying now.
Yet at 10 a.m. she hears the sound
and doesn’t bother to answer. Smiles
at what she’s decided years ago is
a gift. It will tingle faintly inside
for the rest of the day. Tonight in bed
she will lie awake beside her husband
longer than usual. And will murmur
as always, “Thank you” just once.

Dennis Trudell: A Few Minutes

A white horse in a bright meadow,
a man in prison thinks with eyes closed,
but can’t envision it. And can’t. “Please,”
he murmurs. Yesterday he was able
to glimpse a woman in bra and panties
after thinking those words. Yet she
was middle-aged and overweight; he
couldn’t replace her with another. No
young woman or white horse wants to
come here, fool. Asshole. He stares at
his palms, trying to envision something
out there they once touched. Rungs
of a ladder … Except they rise up
toward nothing but a metallic gray sky
with the ground far, far below,
and he feels the rungs are months he
has spent here and will.
He tries to bring
the woman to mind again—but sees
only her brief shadow. He doesn’t
believe in God, but decides that he
has to reach for something or go mad.
He covers both eyes, murmurs, “Help
me. Nothing else can.” These words
die inches from his mouth, and the man
lowers his hands and considers rushing
his skull toward a wall of his cell.
Why the hell not? He feels his body
tense to do that when suddenly the wall
becomes a young woman, naked and
smiling, on a white horse. Moments
later it is a gray wall again, blurred
through his tears—and the quivering
man shuffles there to caress it.