Philomath Wine

She called it Philomath wine,

a four-pack of Cook’s champagne mini bottles

purchased at a gas station in Philomath

before driving Highway 20 to see me in Newport.

She’d swig one, possibly two,

on the road that annually racked up the most human and elk fatalities in Oregon.

Tokes on the joint with a roach clip, too,

as Portland punk rock thundered on the stereo.

We met at a Derrick Jensen reading,

made out on Nye Beach afterward,

lost contact after that.

Three years later she called me on my last land line.

She’d found me in the last phone book ever printed with Newport listings!

“Let’s meet,” she said.

We did.

A dive bar on the Bayfront.

She showed me the first (and only) page of her novel called The Writer.

I read it at the table.

She watched me read and relished the moment.

It was a love letter to me,

written with professional skill,

of an untamed (thankfully) novelist.

If only I still had it to quote here.

Sometimes I didn’t know she was coming, although usually I did.

She studied acupuncture,

dreaming of opening her own shop in New York City,

a place she’d never seen.

We talked, talked, talked for hours on the front deck.

Drained cases of wine.

She never checked her phone.

We ate greasy Sunday breakfasts and drank bloody marys.

Salty Dog in Waldport or Timbers in Toledo.

Once she ripped off her dress on the beach, sprinted to the ocean,

dived in, jumped up with her arms raised high, flexing.

Once she punched me in the shoulder

so I wouldn’t interrogate a man reading the Bible

on a driftlog with his back to the ocean.

I just wanted to know which testament!

Once she dragged me off the couch to celebrate the Fourth of July.

I ended up saving a dog spooked by fireworks.

She always wore the same flimsy dress when she visited.

I think it was the only one she owned.

A squall blew that dress off her body in front of a Thai restaurant.

We were trying to enter but the wind barred the door.

She tip-toed to the dress,

slipped it on,

and we got the order to go.

I verged on asking her to move in after she graduated,

start something novel, explosive, possibly scandalous.

I didn’t.

Later, she moved to New York and opened the shop.