In a curio shop you bought a small angel.
The first thing the two of you did was to eat each other's hearts,
Hospital or cemetery? I asked, wiping spatter off my sleeve.
We have a nest inside Danielle Steele's blastoma, you said.
Take us there.
Little soft-spoken angel, my partner's darling
breaks playmate's noses when things don't go right.
There is the law, and there is what is clearly sick and wrong.
The two of you swing on a blade between the two.
Brilliant Ideas, you get them by the bushelful.
Marriage, madness, ill-advised rambles, and your angel
smashing the crucifixes.
Yes, I tried setting her on fire but your tears put her out.
It is her nature to be unnatural. It is mine to try to survive.
Dawn breaks. The neighbor's rooster kills itself. The sun lists.
What about our family, you ask? I scream, I want a divorce!
You smile and it shatters the Hummels like a cheekbone.
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Gah! A grim tale understood by so many of us....the will to survive. Those closing lines just Knocked. Me. Out.
ReplyDeleteA truly stunning write, Shay. Some dreams are just nightmares, and the only way through is to ride the black horse to death. (That second stanza is priceless.) The angel here is a dark one, more of a voodoo effigy, really, that can't be killed, only buried deeply at the crossroads by a new moon in unconsecrated ground. One of your best in all ways.
ReplyDelete"You smile and it shatters the Hummels like a cheekbone." - Holy crap. What a punch.
ReplyDelete