Jay Sizemore

Methamphetamine

                     ~after Bob Hicok

Imagine a horizon stained with blood,

clothes still warm from the dryer

unfolded and heaped in piles,

a holocaust of time traveling selves

happening every minute without smoke.

Your husband’s pale face a knuckle

on the fist of a ghost, working

at words like a wad of chewing gum.

You remember the ferris wheel

at the Barren County fair, those yellow lights

rimming conjoined ladders that spun

a galaxy of wants in your ribcage, his stubble

rubbing your chin raw. His smile

a haunted piano that played you songs,

now a crumbling chimney of teeth

set to grinding aspirin into dust.

Once he plucked a lily from the hillside

and threaded it behind your ear,

months before he turned you into a smurf,

palming packs of Sudafed from the pharmacy.

You’d find the bathroom door closed,

the acrid odor of flame against foil,

cooking something akin to torment,

a fish hook on each eyelid, pulling.

Before he pawned your mother’s rings,

before his skin seeped with ammonia,

he liked to warm his hand between your thighs,

to surprise you with ice on your neck.

There were nights you’d sit and watch

the bats swoop in and out of the lamplight,

and you’d feel like the bat, the moth, the light,

the blanket of pseudophedrine sweat

clinging to his skin like dew. He would promise

to change and you would believe he could,

the way a child believes reindeer can fly,

that stars contain the whispers of wishes.

But there you were, finding your infant boy

asleep on the floor, dried milk vomit

crusted to his chest, his body quivering

with naked cold, indiscernible rock music

blaring from the bedroom, door closed.

The night felt like hammer, heavy on one side,

a train whistle blowing without end,

a coffin you’d been burying with your hands.

Jay Sizemore was born blue, raised by wolves, and learned to write by translating howls. He doesn't regret his wisdom teeth. He thanks you for your concern. His work can be found here or there, mostly there. Find him at jaysizemore.com, or, if you're a stalker, in Nashville, TN, where he may or may not really exist.