Insurance

by Beau Boudreaux

In high school my friend's father
a State Farm Agent put his secretary up,
a girl our age in a condo by the lake
high in this tower like Rapunzel
she witnesses sunshot horizons
where skiffs disappear. His father brings gifts—
gold watches, rings, tennis bracelets
and she knows better but never begs,
craves seafood due to the view—
soft-shell crab, boiled crawfish, flounder.
He crisscrosses town three, four times a day
neglects business his family for...
a wrought right of passage-like walking the stage
without a diploma, pickerel smile.
His mom rubs Oil of Olay and manicures her fingernails,
hard-boned, assertive made up mom
long strands of deep coral locks as much a trophy,
his father's one-eyed mounted marlin swims the wall,
and my friend's first speckled trout,
illegal sized, stuffed in their stairwell.

Beau Boudreaux is a poet and professor in Continuing Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. His poetry has recently appeared in Antioch Review, Cream City Review, and Margie.