Navigating the Divorce

Business Trip

Business Trip

Johanna M. Vining

Here I am

    fingers stuck in the knotted tree

my face pummeled with bees

White kindles echoing across the treetops –

    a tome too bulky to carry along with me.

Last night, oh, last night I celebrated your absence by

    painting all the doors in the house a foggy shade of green.

I awoke speckled in bee stings and with a hollow ache

    at the base of my curved spine.

I thought I heard you whispering to me,

    but it was only the attic mice ravishing the poison.

From out your window I imagine you remembering me,

    but not as I truly am, only as I’d like to see myself.

With you gone, I don’t know what to do with myself.

    I stand in the center of the living room with my hands on my hips,

    my hair a shambles haloing my head.

I walk through each room of the house this way,

    assessing the situation and making notes for improvement.

I turn the T.V. on too loud,

I crack open an orphaned beer and bind my hair in a knot.

“This is what it would be like if…,” but I don’t finish the sentence

    there is no need to give extra significance to this temporary situation.

10.16.2012

JMG | JMV