Old Too Late By Leah Mueller

      Thomas Hawk Flickr


OLD TOO LATE

Krist Novoselic smiled at me
backstage after an L7 show.
I was 9 months pregnant, dressed
in a maternity outfit from Target.
My boyfriend knew one of
the band members from his
misspent youth in Los Angeles.

The friend’s aspirations
toward superstardom
had not rubbed off on my boyfriend.
The two of us rented a coach house
with a partial address: 4417 ½.
Our mail often wound up
at the neighbor’s home.
They thought we were pathetic.

I thought they were typical
uptight Seattle yuppies,
without an ounce of punk rock
in their perfectly toned bodies.
They had sufficient capital
to go camping every weekend,
make coffee in their expensive
gas-powered espresso maker,
then repose on the floor
of a $500 REI tent
and exclaim about the crickets.

My daughter was due
to arrive in less than a week,
but at least I had enough sense
to buy a crib and order diaper service,
unlike when my son was born,
six years beforehand.
No doubt, Krist was amused
by my protuberant belly
as I lumbered like
a 1960s station wagon
towards the backstage toilet.

23 years later, I am certain
Krist doesn’t remember me,
and I’m living with another man
in a different, rented coach house
on the north end of Tacoma.
Some things don’t change:
except this time, we have
an entire address to ourselves.

​

Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books. Her latest book, a memoir entitled “Bastard of a Poet” was published by Alien Buddha Press in June, 2018. Leah’s work appears in Blunderbuss, The Spectacle, Outlook Springs, Crack the Spine, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and other publications. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest.

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