your heart is a cracked accordion filling fast with salt – Patrick Rosal
My ex-wife called to tell me this.
Well, not exactly this. She called for money
I’d already paid. As an aside, in passing,
she added this: Our son cries.
He holds his face in his hands and sobs.
He stops by for food, cleansing, a couch
for sleeping on. He talks to himself.
He scratched the name “Jesus”
into his chest, says he’s fighting
the devil. He asked if he was adopted,
says Bob Marley is playing games
with his mind. His prescription
bottle’s full; he says the doctor is stupid.
Our son cries, she tells me in passing
after asking for money I’d already paid.
She cries, says she prays for magic.
I do not cry right there in front of her,
on the phone. Instead, I blink hard
and blink hard again.
Danny Earl Simmons is an Oregonian and a proud graduate of Corvallis High School. He has loved living in the Mid-Willamette Valley for over 30 years. He is a friend of the Linn-Benton Community College Poetry Club and an active member of Albany Civic Theater. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in various journals such as Avatar Review, Summerset Review, The Smoking Poet, Toe Good Poetry, Pirene’s Fountain, and Burning Word. His published poems can be found at www.dannyearlsimmons.blogspot.com.
