Wednesday, March 2, 2011

31 Winter Poems: Poem 21


Wanted


Knock. Knock. she says, holding her breath for a split second

before continuing the task of changing his diaper. Muttering, vampire,

into the waiting silence. Vampire State Building.

She laughs out loud at the absurdity of life.

One morning she could be folding laundry, watching Matt Lauer

climb the sides of Kilauea, mesmerized by fiery lava blasting a frothing sea.

Never imagining catastrophe and ash would soon rain down on her own city,

an armageddon attack turning a beloved space briefly into a war zone.

A different kind of eruption, leaving her husband cracked and spitting,

the molten shell of a man she never wanted.