“How to Be a Poet Days After Finding Out Your Husband Cheated on You,” Leigh Chadwick
On the patio, smoke another Turkish Silver. Toss the butt into the back yard. Imagine a forest fire as the cherry fizzles, as the grass stays grass. Go inside and throw what’s left of the pack of Turkish Silvers in the trash. Microwave a frozen burrito. Fish out the pack of cigarettes from the trash. Take two Xanax. Forget about the burrito in the microwave. Stare at the bottle of Xanax. Take another then take a shower. Turn the water so hot your body turns Dante. Don’t bother drying off. Still wet, get in bed anyway. Think this is the last time you might ever be wet. Try to masturbate. Get close three times but don’t finish. Give up. Turn on the TV. Watch part of an infomercial for a knife that can cut through a penny. Change the channel. Catch the last half of a commercial for a movie called Space Death, where a knife cuts through a star and then the screen goes black and then the tagline: This Thanksgiving Not Even Space Is Safe. Think you would rather have a knife that could cut through a star than a penny. Think about not thinking. It’s five in the afternoon. Fall asleep. Dream the two of them in his Volvo, parked in her driveway, his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, his throat slit from a knife that can cut through a star or a penny or maybe both.
LEIGH CHADWICK is the author of the chapbook Daughters of the State (Bottlecap Press, 2021) and the pœtry coloring book This Is How We Learn to Pray, illustrated by Stephanie Kirsten (ELJ Editions, 2021). Her forthcoming books include her debut pœtry collection Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) and the collaborative poetry collection Too Much Tongue (Autofocus, 2022), co-written with Adrienne Marie Barrios. Leigh’s pœtry has appeared in Salamander, Passages North, The Indianapolis Review, HAD, Pithead Chapel, and Hobart.