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