In my apartment, the cats are all asleep,
curled into quiet balls of fur,
sometimes stretching, covering eyes with paws.
The ceiling fan spins an artificial breeze
while outside a chilly wind
rattles loose pieces of siding, shakes the trees.
Some of the lights are on, the heat is set at 71 degrees.
I haven't slept for two days because I feel
like an empty school bus, driven through a ghost town.
Somewhere, it is a policeman's job to count shell casings,
to draw lines of chalk around each one
before placing it into a ziplock bag, before the bodies are removed.
A glass of water sets on the table, slowly warming.
Next door, the neighbors are invisible shadows of sound in the walls.
A clock ticks.
He never fooled himself into believing
that music could start a revolution,
that words could stop a war
the way darkness could drain
color from a tan.
There's more power in the words
left unsaid. Their last conversation
was a tedious waltz around
the dead body of lust,
his memory unshaken, her pleading eyes
overlapping the fish-eyed naivety
of vodka-laced kisses with strangers,
her pale flesh the thin barrier
between forgiveness and rape.
He gnashed his teeth like a dog
between wolves and lamb,
their howls begging his complicity
with predators disguised
as college kids, their nostrils flared
and full of the scent of blood.
No. The empty bottles robbed her
of this word he chose to speak for her.
He would have killed them,
a drunk knight defending
some honor-filled illusion,
preventing the looters
removing the jewelry
from a corpse.
In the light of day
he fools himself into believing
it's the alcohol that does it,
not that all men have sharks in their skin
waiting for paper cuts
from the lips of the moon.
Jay Sizemore writes poetry and short fiction that offends his family. He is way behind on reading the classics. His work has appeared in places like Ayris, Red River Review, DASH, and Spry. His poem "My Despair Trivialized" was nominated for Best of the Net 2013 by Cease, Cows. He currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, home of the death of modern music.