the winter anthology
Vol. 8
Carolyn Hembree
The Goner
They’ll read something like it somewhere—
wronged one longed all along for the long gone wrong one
wool over this one's eyes, steel wool
in that one's mouth, a half-eaten blood orange
on the floor of some abode, some dust
devil of angel dust, where, half-senseless
in a half-slip, a drama mama fans herself
with an automatic, strung along
by this mind reader, that peter
meter, another string bikini’d string bean
who in a string of bad language unstrung
my mind—a gripe a gulp a growl a glint a goring