Saundra Rose Maley   WAR BONDS it was wartime daisies and maisies in overalls worked in factories snapping gum in their teeth ration spunk to keep them going through weekend tours at the local USO or late nights checking hats for the Willard rooftop garden it was rough making ends meet while their men were at war in radio worlds and newspaper print nights at home were spent reading letters over and over like prayers mouths shaped to the words and Hershey bars melted on radiators MAMA she worked nights at the Peacock Alley days she pushed hands through hair in a beauty shop a good operator professional ways customers liked tipped well as they left the last head done shampoo and set a quick bite at Murphy's counter on the way to her night job in the taxi mirror she became glamorous a mae west mama making the rounds with her tray cigars cigarettes a gardenia for the lady mister won't you OFFERING TO A DEFEATED SAVIOUR for James Wright I The house on Union Street where you were born no longer stands, disappeared between Pearl and Zane Highways, so I pay my respects to an abandoned house nearby before leaving town. Old curtains pant from its broken windows and a white dog barks at me — I back into my car and roll down Seabrights Lane toward Hanover Street in the silent blue music of the lives you saved Three women sit at a bus stop like shopping bags— an old man some factory belched up to the sun after thirty years in hellfire spits back through a gap in his teeth. Down Short Street a fan of spray lifts off the hood of a souped-up Chevy— Ah, Martin's Ferry, I don't belong here. II On the way home back through Lover, PA and the open throat of Allegheny Mountain the turnpike unwinds before me like a fraying ribbon The spring hills hold a hundred shades of green and when I round a curve six white horses bloom on a hillside still as marble markers. I think of you. For some reason I look back and Martins Ferry disappears with the sun, a small halo mourns over Sideling Hill and you are gone — gone over my shoulder forever down into a suck-hole like your strange Jenny, and John Shunk the diver can't bring you back and neither can I. III And at my back in the rear view mirror a monstrous truck barrels down on me its fierce face glaring— TRUST JESUS someone sprayed on the bridge in the blood of a broken deer. You were right we can all go straight to hell in Ohio or wherever we are and only a good man's prayers can save us. IV The journey back is long. I lull into the incandescent blue of early sleep Sudden beads of light slip past me like the first flashes of a dream. The deep black bowl of the valley fills with small gems one by one And two glowing coals burn like sanctuary lamps on the back of a Buick up ahead — I am not alone sweet Jesus of graffiti I fall into your fluorescent arms   Saundra Rose Maley is an adjunct assistant professor in the English Department, George Washington University and also teaches at the Catholic University. She's had poems in Dryad, Calvert Review, Ethos, Sybil-Child, The Mill and D.C. Perspectives. She is the author of Solitary Apprenticeship: James Wright and German Poetry (Mellen Press) and with Francis A. Burkle-Young, The Art of the Footnote and The Research Guide for the Digital Age (both published by the University Press of America). Published in Volume 1, Number 4, Fall 2000.   Read more by this author: Saundra Rose Maley's Introduction to Vol. 6, No. 1, The Whitman Issue (Winter 2004) The Museum Issue (Winter 2009) Saundra Rose Maley: Tenth Anniversary Issue