What Jamie Waited to Hear
Jamie, 1953
Cheyenne, Wyoming

by Anna Citrino


Howard, my first husband, was a tall man
with a small heart. I married him
because I was alone and didn’t want to be.

A temperamental man, Howard believed
in signs. If a raven flew overhead, someone
was going to die. When a neighbor found
a dinosaur bone in his field, something
dangerous was sure to come our way.

Usually, that was Howard yelling, 
throwing things, angry at what he wanted
and didn’t get. He thought he wanted me.

But I saw the signs and divorced him,
a story with an ending
he didn’t like.
 
My second husband, Frank, liked horses,
and worked with me on the ranch,
but fell in love with cigarettes, alcohol,
and the company of other women.
I divorced him, too.
 
My third husband, Alfred, loved farming
but let me do the work. I didn’t mind too much.
He smoked less, didn’t yell often or drink
every day and stayed around in the evenings.
 
Belonging. That's a strange word.
To belong to someone or they to you.
I’ve spent a lot of time longing, longing to be
someone to somebody.

None of my husbands have told me, “I love you.”
Neither do I say the words. 
So hard to say what I’ve scarcely
experienced or heard. 
 
When I did hear them one summer evening
sitting under stars with Alfred, instead of
telling him I loved him too, suddenly I grew silent,
absorbing the light shooting from a falling star,
its unasked brilliance plummeting across night’s violet dark.

Nothing had ever seemed so beautiful
or so brief.


* * * * *

"What Jamie Waited to Hear" is part of Anna Citrino's growing longer work of related poems. More poems from the longer work were posted here on November 10 and 11 and December 14, 2023, and two more will follow January 30 and 31, 2024.

Anna Citrino is the author of A Space Between, and Buoyant,  Saudade, and To Find a River. Anna taught abroad in six different countries: Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK. Her work has appeared in Bellowing Ark, Canary, Evening Street Review, Indelible, Paterson Literary Review, phren-z, Poppy Road Review, and the Porter Gulch Review, among other literary journals. On most any day you can find her going for walks near the coast or biking on paths through rolling hills where she lives in Sonoma County, California. Read more of her writing at annacitrino.com.