Before and After the crash
Before and After the crash
by sarah endsley
Before the crash,
we were stylish–
we danced, rhythmically
we imagined
the chipper clink of glasses
against the purple sky.
Two white lines
completed our love
and the chatter of birds at dawn
cold and crisp
massaged our fragile necks.
I threw the happy mug against a wall,
as well as the blue stemware
and the acorn plate
sweeping them together on bloody feet.
We passed the time. The stars aligned unfavorably.
The remains of our affair were recycled at separate plants.
One half of my stemware reminds me that the other half exists.
If not for you, I would never get dressed in the morning.
Pretty good for a break-up poem. From the title and the first stanza I thought that it might be a poem about paralysis. In the second stanza, the paralysis theme continues subtly while the whole point of the poem is introduced. And it isn’t whiney. There isn’t anything you could do to this poem to make it better. Well done.