by Howie Good
Better stay on your meds. Or get some.
Otherwise how will you ignore
the pile of hacked-off limbs on the hospital lawn,
the amputees limping or crawling away,
as disability permits,
their sacrifice worse than forgotten – misremembered?
You’ll end up scribbling on napkins
and the last remaining walls, and the scribbles,
presuming they’re discovered,
will sound when pieced together
like a suicide note left to mislead investigators.
Christ, you’ll end up like me,
driving slowly over a bridge of bones,
your face gray with exhaustion,
while along the slatternly, post-industrial river,
morning birds sing in the cadaverous trees.
Howie Good’s latest chapbooks are Last Words, available online from Gold Wake Press and Police & Questions, available online from Right Hand Pointing.
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