Tina Barry

Because I was Lonely

in Eighties New York City, I placed
a personal ad, promised to be prettier,
more exciting than I am.

Because they were lonely,
I hauled a plastic bag full of letters
from the newspaper’s office,

subwayed beside its poking points,
already their girlfriend,
protective of their secrets.

Men auditioned in swirled script.
Postcards and Post-its. Quiet pages
translucent as shed skin.

One cooked a perfect Spanish omelet.
Another posed with three dachshunds,
offered a ready-made family.

A widower sent a list of everything
he missed about his wife. I stopped
reading at seven pages.

I dated a few. A sweet man who giggled.
A divorced dad who brought
his sullen teenage twins.

An inmate sent a letter, stamped
with a prison logo like a warning
tattoo. I let it sit

for a week. Inside, an old
black and white “Me. Ten years old”
scrawled at the bottom.

I ran a finger along its edge, worn
from handling, stared at the boy,
messy-haired, gangly in his Sunday suit.

How lonely he must have been to part
with it.


Driving Lessons in Mid-life

My driving instructor sits beside me, bald,
clothes washed gray, foot hovering over the brake
           that juts from the floor like a child’s fist.

He stares at my profile, his expression ripe.
His words have nothing to do with merging
           on a speeding highway, or how to stop from skidding

on an ice-slicked road. Just a steady sleet of stories. He speaks of brushes
with royalty. Tête-à-têtes with Nixon. The time Ho Chi Minh phoned at midnight
           desperate for his advice. Uh-huh, I say. And Really? then smear a squirrel

beneath my wheels, turn north on a one-way street going south.
I believe none of what he says, until he ends our lessons with a memory
           of his parents’ nightclub. Then I’m with him --


a sequined ball dapples the velvet seats with light. Cigars waft
and bookies hustle. Tips tuck beneath satin garters.
           The lazy sex of saxophones.

He’s the little son, kissed and coddled by women in furs. The tiniest
rat in the rat pack. At twenty, his Twist out-swivels Elvis.
           For the first time, I look at him fully,

the way he might have bent close to a mirror, pushed
a Brylcreemed curl from his young forehead.
           The way a woman would have gazed at him decades ago.

About the Author

Tina Barry is the author of I Tell Henrietta, with art by Kristin Flynn (Aim Higher, Inc., 2024), Beautiful Raft and Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing). Her writing can be found in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Rattle, Verse Daily, ONE ART, SWWIM, The Best Small Fictions 2020 and 2016, and elsewhere. MFA in creative writing from Long Island University, Brooklyn. Tina has several Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Best Microfiction nominations. She teaches poetry and short fiction at the Poetry Barn and Writers.com.

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