sev
er
ed
is how you leave me
just three days before Mother’s Day
when you tell me:
“we are thinking
of having
we want to have
CHILDREN
but I could never trust you
with them
would have to protect them
from you” (echo in my head: from you from you from you)
and half my body goes numb with the shock clang
of being
S
L
I
C
E
Down the middle
from head to groin thud
no breath will come/no words/as my left hand holds the phone/and I listen to the swish of your sword being wiped and sheathed/ all the way from Los Angeles LA LA Land/ where you stand in some unknown room/ I have never seen
a bank slate
you stand/in total whiteness void
or
maybe in front of a Hollywood
green screen
hard faced
in your shining armor
while I gaze out with my one
remaining eye destroyed
at the late
spring evening breeze blowing the silver grass to green
and back to silver again
in gentle
undulation tribulation
Nicole Farmer has published two books of poetry, Wet Underbelly Wind (Finishing Line Press 2022) and Honest Sonnets (Kelsay Books 2023). Her poems have been published in over forty magazines, including Wisconsin Review, Suisun Valley Review, Apricity, Wildroof Journal, and Poetry South. She was awarded the first prize in prose poetry from Bacopa Literary Review in 2020. She lives in Asheville, NC.