Ensure

Was she yet sixty years old
When her 1998 Chevy Malibu came off the assembly line in Wilmington
Did she buy it new
Or did she buy it later
When she surely must have been over sixty
This is what I am thinking about now
Hours later
In the moment
I was all about the empty ensure bottle
The one she picked up off the ground
On her way into the grocery store
Apparently on the chance that it might be full
Flinging it down when she realized it was empty
As a homeless man might have dealt with a cigarette butt that proved to have too little tobacco left to be useful
I wonder what flavor she was hoping for
Mixed fruit
Vanilla
Classic tobacco
Silvermist metallic
If I was forced to drive a 1998 Chevy Malibu I would have gone with dark torreador metallic
If I was imprisoned in Guantanamo and on a hunger strike
I would have wanted to be force fed with butter pecan
If I was a bum
I'd hope for half smoked menthol
I say
At forty
From my office
With a 2002 medium blue metallic Park Avenue parked in the driveway
That I bought a few years after it rolled off the assembly line in Hamtramck
Chewing on the draw strings of my sweat shirt
My long straggly hair falling down into my eyes
An almost empty glass of soy milk next to me
Calling on me to extract the last few drops
Assuring me
That no one is up to see me lick the last few drops off of the side of the glass and
Hold that and
My car
Against me