Enlightenment in the Parking Lot
You curl up in the corner of the washroom
without concern about the urine on the floor
and you hear hot voices and cool riffs
leave through the door of the village barn
where they celebrate your getting hitched
to husband number three. While you were pensive
and wondered, he stumbled drunk
into your best friend holding on to her tits
to soften his fall. You lick salt and hug yourself
not caring about the bruises, then you lift
yourself, slowly, because your body is heavy,
and you walk out unseen through the back entrance.
You kick off your heels, your head clears some
and when you get to the parking lot
you’re not sure where you’ll be driving,
but you know you won’t die again.
imperfect recall
in the car whistling
shrieking metal on metal
big woman shuffles
a soprano voice and
sharp cuts crystal
shatters on flagstone
I have insurance
abandoned fields fierce
orange mushrooms push
open the wound on a fallen trunk
old man furtively pisses
out old afflictions mosquitoes
throng and settle on
the heat coming off me
smears of blood on my cage
suppose it’s mine
then it was summer
night air police sirens
one-hundred-and-seven days
needed to return
now bare trees smeared
glass brittle with frost
tattered images
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection (TANGENTS) published in 2011 in the UK, well over 100 of her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a good two dozen US poetry reviews as well as some print anthologies, and Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet. She won third price in in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (US), was semi-finalist in the Naugatuck poetry contest 2012/13 and has been a finalist in several GR contests, winning it in October 2014.
