Combating the Rain:  A Suite of Five Fractured Poems

Combating the Rain:  A Suite of Five Fractured Poems

“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.”  —W. Somerset Maugham

I.  They Dream Spring

They dream spring
Under slow, gray clouds
Where the lies
They tell themselves
Are as wet
And transparent
As the rain

Where all she knows
About him
Is hanging
From the plants
She kept alive
While he
Was away

Too bad he goes
Before strawberry season
Before planting
Tomatoes, cucumbers
And cabbages

II.  Her Words

If her words could move like the wind,
They would form his face in the clouds.
They would hang in the tops of the trees,
Gently hovering a nest
Where a mother bird sits on eggs
The color of his eyes.

III.  Anticipation of the Vernal Equinox

Baby will not kick her walls again
Empty womb   forever
In a house that will not rock
And groan with the new born
Empty breasts   not needed
No new tiny lips to suck out milk
Two babies came made her body
Made her house ready for babies
Empty tubes   cut & burned
Baby she is ready for
Comes each month
As far as the scar

IV.  The Break

The zipper at the back of her neck
Catches hairs
That break in sharp snaps—
Like his words
As he jumped over the couch
spitting out:  ‘it’s your fucking fault’—

She knows it’s her fucking fault.
If his spit could put out
The fire in her head
Her eyes would spew him
A smoky thanks
And her excuses would fall at his feet
Humble ashes.

V.  Between Slices of Bread

His tongue cuts
Slices of meat
From the hearts
And livers
Of those
Who would love him

From between his teeth
He picks pieces of flesh
That pours from each victim—
A stuck hog

Original suite of poems appearing in my collection titled “At the End of the Road.”