The Most I Could Do   

by Ron Lavalette

 Ron Lavalette reads 

The Most I Could Do



in RealAudio format.
     

   
—for j lopes

   
I watched: her breasts grow large
Her nipples swell her belly
Barge-like ferocious with child
Comes knocking 
Like the moon at a midnight door
While angry he at home puked
and swore

Grudgingly she grew. He
Distracted, drunken, sunk
Beyond his own oblivion,
Telephones:
I don't remember what / if he said:
The phone or he was nearly dead
or dead

And what could be said, then?
What could one say? The day is
Ended? The night is coming on?
What to do?
I offered her a cup of tea;
The most I could do: far more 
than he

      Able Muse

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