Wednesday, August 3, 2016

brainstorm.

Stuck in traffic, I begin to write.
Testing a phrase for sound
and looking for the hook
to pull the listener full-fledged
into the narrative somehow
 soothes the numbing tedium
of brakelights to the horizon.

For two years, it was the speech
I planned to give at my best friend's wedding.
There were Twinkies, and quilts,
and at least one good death threat involved
because there's no solid toast
without the murmur of bodily harm.
I had that speech down cold.

I never gave it.
The night of her wedding I sat,
staring across the parking lot
to where my husband slumped
across the steering wheel,
adrift on a sea of sedatives.
There was nothing to say.

In Houston, there's always a slowdown,
highway construction, or some accident.
Storms come up without warning.
I take back roads, mutter at red lights.
The radio plays too loud
I'm considering a fancy bluetooth headset
anything to keep the story from starting.

These days, if I let myself loose
to wander in my mind,
I spark sentences,
layer memories with sounds,
and catch myself choking.
The street swims within my grief.
I'm writing his eulogy.