john grey

 

 

DIVORCE

You're scratching your nose. What's your motive?
Is this where the great skin peel commences?
You're hurting and I need to know.
The outside tried. Now it's the inside's turn.

Your eye flutters. Is that sincere?
You hitch up your dress a little. Clues, anyone?
And now you're making coffee -
why now? is there something I need to know?

I interrogate every act for signs of despair.
Is the finger tapping what sets off the explosion?
What does a comb know that I don't
as it threads through auburn hair?

You pull at a thread. I dread the word "unravel".
You adjust a curtain.
Isn't it all about adjustments?
And then you look at your watch.
Do you go to time for advice?

Thirty years you've been doing this:
with lack of threat, threatening to leave me.
You tie a shoe-lace. You close a door.
That's you straightening a sheet.
I breathe though I mean nothing by it.

 

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in The Lyric, Vallum and the science fiction anthology, “The Kennedy Curse” with work upcoming in Bryant Literary Magazine, Natural Bridge, Southern California Review and the Oyez Review.

 

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