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I expect the jungle
to whisper the enemy's name in my ear,
spider his breath across my face,
to feel droplets of sweat
squeezed from his grin
before he slices the scream from my throat.
But I wake to nothing,
no placement for the razoring
of adrenaline into flesh,
death animated in pearls of lead.
Here, in mornings of ordinary sunlight
that amble in through plastic blinds,
there is only falling,
the compulsion to follow the motion of a blade
thrust into emptiness that searches for completion.
And I count the days
across my wife's smile
worn for no reason at all,
her words, too soft,
cut away from my ears like necrotic flesh.
Tired of watching her lips waft
like waves of crimson
along the Mekong banks,
I know that after the next cab,
there won’t be one to bring me back.
My last gasp lingers
all around you, molecules
tinged with the acrid taste of mortality,
betrayal nettled into your tongue.
And you will know shock
discovering that you are not a god
as treachery is plunged into flesh over
and over as your laurel-bathed crown
falls to earth,
earth stained with the misery of kings
I crossed impossible waters to bring you
to feast on
under colosseum shade.
Every time she points at the dark man
hiding behind cars in the parking lot,
by the fence, and these days,
bold enough to stare
through her window,
he always disappears
before anyone sees.
Even the damn dog who
barks at falling leaves
doesn’t raise an eye.
She resolves not to
let him catch her.
Today, she has finally saved
enough of the brown pills,
swallows them all
while lying in the soft light
of her old room
her parents saved for her.
Sheri L. Wright is the author of five books of poetry, including the most recent, The Slow Talk of Stones. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, such as Chiron Review, The Single Hound and Crucible. Ms. Wright hosts the literary radio show, From The Inkwell, at CrescentHillRadio.com and founded the Stone Soup Poetry Series.