Hope

Main Avenue, Hebron, N.D., State Historical Society of North Dakota (2012-P-035-0040)

By James Wolner

Each frozen morning now

I wake to see my own breath in front of me

appearing to make a feeble run for it

like a part of this old farmer that wants to flee the scene

but cannot

or will not

at least not without her

and so must blush and balk at the door

awkwardly like the shy schoolboy he once used to be.

-

And as my frigid, sting-needled fingers fumble in the ignition

my mechanical companion

a chain-smoking, semi-retired Chevy V-8

shrugs his old metal shoulders quietly and gives this all a halfhearted morning go

first with a cough-like thud — like a dead bag of seed from a flatbed

and then again and yet again

until we both,

almost reluctantly and somewhat regrettably,

perk and putter-up

into a pitter patter of rattle

pistons and heart valves firing again

accepting, finally

the hard fact of ‘life after sleep’

and surrendering to the undeniable human duty of seeing things through to the end.

-

But I know too that in just a few minutes and miles down the road I’ll be back in

Hebron, North Dakota

coffee and caffeine maneuvering and mingling my slushy bloodstream

kneading and heating like a clean-burning cocktail of whisky and anti-freeze

flirting its way towards my rough stubble of a heart

with the seductive sweet-talk of a voluptuous youthful notion called ‘Hope’.

-

And sure enough, even before I roll onto Main Street it happens

as it seems to happen most mornings lately.

Unknown whether my rusty escort and I are both ready for the final junkyard

or if this is just the early dawn of our glorious restoration

I crack a broad and long-overdue late-life smile

just thinking

and just knowing

that at any given moment

and at any given time

I might see her again

I might see her again

I might see her again.

JAMES WOLNER is a resident of Hebron, North Dakota. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature with a minor in photojournalism from Fresno State University in California in 1990. Prior to living in North Dakota, he lived in Sweden for twenty-one years.