Woman on Kitchen Chair Sunning Herself Behind the Dumpster at the Back of the Bakery

She ignores the smells
to get the best light.
Reading a paperback, her long legs bare,
baseball cap tilted on her blonde head.

I know this woman, know that the sunny town home
on a shaded street she shared
with a guy who ran off with all the equity
and her beloved French bulldog
is now in the market.

Her new home an upstairs apartment,
no patio or back deck.
So this is where she comes to relax.
To read and to tan, undeterred
by odors from rotting vegetables,
left-overs from the most delicious tuna
and veggie sandwiches.
Smells I usually cross the street to avoid.

Maybe she wears Vicks under her nose
like detectives entering a room
where someone bled and died.
I’m not close enough to see and besides
her head is turned away, like she
doesn’t want to embarrass casual viewers,
ashamed of her partnerless, dogless status.

And maybe she, like the detectives,
needs to ignore the smell to do her job:
Forget the boyfriend,
the house, the privacy.
Pretend this is her choice, her way
of getting the job done,
burnishing arms & legs, losing herself
in the well-thumbed paperback romance
She must read this
to keep her hopes up.

*

Dotty LeMieux has published five poetry chapbooks, two during the pandemic: Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune from Finishing Line Press and Viruses, Guns and War from Main Street Rag Press in 2023. She formerly edited the eclectic literary and art journal, The Turkey Buzzard Review. Her work has appeared in numerous publications such as Rise Up Review, Loch Raven Review, Painted Bride, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gyroscope and others. She lives with her husband and accidental husky Mijah in Fairfax California.