Thursday, May 2, 2024

It’s personal -- Poetry journal July 20, 2012

 

 

“Don’t worry, it’s personal,”

The two owners tell me

Locked up in their office

Getting the third degree

Personal?

Maybe the way a cold steel blade is

Eased between my ribs,

Or the chilly tip of a 45

Pressed again my forehead

Personal?

While neither of these two

Will push the blade or pull the trigger,

I already know who wants to

And might do so sooner or later,

Even if these two show mercy

And won’t yet fire me,

Condemning me perhaps to worse

Continued exile

When I’m aching to come in from the cold,

I barely breathe as I see their faces,

His glare telling me he wish it was different,

Hers full of that belligerent mercy,

As if she fully understands

How a man like me can get caught up

In a messy matter like this,

Reading my wild hormones as if tea leaves

Warning me with her stare

To beware, to avoid getting myself there

Again, as if I could help it,

When we all know I can’t.


email to Al Sullivan

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