True Colors
All who drive by the blink
that is Mesquite Bend notice
the yellow and orange house,
a ranch-style built in 1962
when the mini-oil boom swept
through this Texas county.
Bubba Blue bought the house
from his grandmother’s estate
five years before, when the house
gleamed white with a tan border.
Bubba, who stands six-foot-four
in pin-striped-stockinged feet,
looks like a light pole in his pastel shirts
and crisp, starched slacks. The tassels
on his dress shoes almost jingle
as he stands behind the counter
at the local bank, his bright smile
the highlight of many an old woman’s
day. Bubba loves Zane Grey,
romcom movies and ice cream,
but only his female corgi knows
Bubba sleeps on pink, Egyptian cotton
sheets in a room painted red.
Colors, Bubba’s true loves, draw
the eye to the house where his family
have come in and out of the world
since a 17-year-old Blue brought
his bride to the new construction,
as sure of himself as the West Texas wind.
But Lucy Lind thinks she loves
Bubba enough for both of them,
her five-two frame the round
opposite to the man she set her heart for
the moment he stooped to touch
her cheek, ever so gently, the day
in junior high school when the girls
first called her “porky.” Fridays, she
cooks Bubba’s favorite casserole,
serves him on her Fiesta ware, laughs
and cries with the video in her rusty
machine. Bubba’s lean arm
wraps around her pudgy shoulders,
a silent apology for the unspoken
truth of it, his need to be free
outweighing his love for even
the kindest woman Mesquite Bend
has ever known.
Ramona Levacy
April 22, 2015
goodchristianfiction 