Prelude To A Divorce

Photo by Tjook

why walk when you can ride, she said
the bus on fire the upper deck peeled
back and dragging the asphalt
laughing with the driver, trying to steal
his hat then searching in her seal-skin
purse for half a roll of lozenges she’d hid –
a secret from her kids – already woozy
from carbon monoxide and smoke
she wanted the menthol gems to flare
her nasal passages and allow the pollutants
to really rip through her alveoli.
finally sucking on a candy, tongue going numb,
watching herself in the milky blue
reflection of the crackled windscreen –
big bones hosting big curves. the driver
tips back his head, near unhinges his jaw
pours an arc of caramel brown fluid
down his gullet and offers her the bottle.
why not, she says, it’s too late to turn back.
she drinks, digs a thumb into her ribs
over the spot where her heart once was
before she let it petrify before love became
an anchor and she the chain not hardly
wondering how her family was doing
stuck in the back with the sparks and flames

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GlenDodge

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a poet from Seattle Washington USA. His poetry has appeared in print in publications such as Bellowing Ark, Point Nopoint, and most recently in Contraposition magazine. When not writing poetry he is a Human Resources professional, a repentant glutton, and a novelist specializing in the weird-fiction genre.

• The Return Of H.p. Lovecraft
• Visitor From Before The Dawn Of Language
• A New Prophet
• Political Animals
• Phases Of The Road

All poems written by Glendodge