Tonight's Poet Corner: Under Par

Under Par
by Belinda Roddie

Everyone left the course when
the rain started, but the golfer's daughter
was adamant, and she let herself
get struck by lightning trying
to score a hole in one for the first time
to impress her drunk dad,

who was sitting at the clubhouse
bar, drinking mojitos
and wincing at the memory
of his wife's voice, all rough
and husky after seventy straight years
of smoking smuggled Cuban cigars,

and she was now living in Havana
with a much younger man, his chest
hair thicker and darker than his own
shadow, his face buried in her sagging

cleavage, breathing in her folds,
breathing in her creases, breathing in
her octogenarian origami, her skin
as thin as paper (and smelling as acidic
as paper, too), and as they made love,

and as the noise of the clubhouse
died down with each swallow of
vodka and lemonade, outside lay
the golfer's daughter, who was now

sprawled in the grass with electricity
in her hair, Jupiter's weapon lodged
in her throat, the pitching wedge
charred in her hand, the laughter
still pooling from her like the growing
puddles of Mother Nature's stagnant tears.