Living: This is Goodbye

I am baling wire

razor jaws breaking the skin

a poisonous nightmare

of rumpled consultation

dead weather

jumping off a roof

following my own pattern

I am almost out of ink

would you read me

in all the moving lines

The Absence or the Sum

his soul was black—blacker than

the 20 oz. French press pot of Major Dickason's

Blend full-bodied

complex without cream concession

the cashier at the kiosk was not

pouring into my limited

edition Guatemala clear tumbler with a screw-on lid and

double-walled construction to keep my beverage hot or cold

not pouring in a timely fashion—any fashion—playing

a deadly game of chicken

with my debit card and his dog-less

ex-lover their argument about parenting pit bull puppies

the whole ensemble fucking fantastic

to the growing queued-up line while I am still next

still waiting for the flush of the press the giant

surge of caffeine—waiting for the cashier

to show some sign, any sign of intelligence

that he is not a spiny-finned jack

before I slap him before I mount

an army of un-coffeed unhappy soldiers

for him to place my card, my product

plainly on the counter-top

I would program the award winning apology complete

with a puppy named Stupid Sarah if it would speed things up but

reading his expression, the dog-less ex-lover’s

expression it would be a special day in hell before

that was going to happen so

I buried them both under a lilac bush

and that was my call to answer

Bio: In addition to being a crazy cat lady, Laura LeHew is an award winning poet. Her work has appeared in numerous national and international journals and anthologies. Her chapbook _Beauty,_ /Tiger’s Eye Press/, May ’09 is in its 2nd printing. She edits Uttered Chaos www.utteredchaos.org. Laura received her MFA in writing from the California College of The Arts.