From the collection Use All Your Eyes to See, published 2020. Note: this is a blitz poem, kind of…Click the link if you want information on what started me off here with this poem.

Cyanide to Imagine

So loud and sunglasses
So loud and cyanide.
Cyanide green swimsuit-clad
cyanide comes to mind –
mind and body can be parted
mind you it’s illegal.
Parted hair straight down the middle
parted chlorine pool blue waves
waves of vanity
waves a taloned hand.
Hand me my beach towel
hand reaches and hook fingers
fingers wrapped in platinum
fingers that squeeze the bee
the bee that stings.
The bee terrified and angry
angry and strikes out
angry and stings hard
hard and cyanide deep
hard and into her skin
skin lying in anonymous silence
skin a thin sunburned shell
shell covering fragile hauteur
shell cracked apart and curses
curses a lady like that knows
curses she reveals running
running and flapping her towel
running for her life
life and in this scenario
life raft of plenty money
money didn’t pay this bill
money didn’t fend off silence
Silence in the hospital room
silence in the grave
grave thoughts and circular ones
grave case of terminal dead
dead to the world
dead and the incident
incident as in bee sting
incident as in anaphylactic shock
shock for all of us
shock at how ordinary
ordinary insect
ordinary and it had some nerve
nerve and verve to sting and zap
nerve and swerve into imagine
imagine the carried-out-feet-first misery
imagine her platinum chagrin –
chagrin mixed with the cyanide
misery of intense embarrassment.

1/3/19
Blitz