Loss by Jack Henry

she loved me one line at a time;

in a backseat or front;

parked behind a Seven/11;

up town or down;

she had no preference or discrimination;

some days we took turns being the boss;

banging away to Stevie Ray;

doing things natural & unnatural;

all points in between;

she cried at church on Sunday’s, sitting in the front with the other weeping widows;
she never gave me a chance to be a man;

or be her man;

or be anything other than a one hit wonder;

she took what she took & left me limp & whining;


i never knew the truth of her recalcitrance

& i lost track of her soul late one night

between gun shots & firefights out the blvd;

sirens blast & wail, screaming songs a bit out of key;

when i dream i see her;

bent over a coffee table;

one line at a time;

shaking her ass & singing along w/Aretha;
she tells me stories in those dreams;

tall-tales of hope & mystery & possibility;

laughter, perfection, & something i could never share;

when the cops called i woke with a start;

‘can you ID the body? they said;

they stood at a freezer door;

pulled the handle & wheeled out a frozen form

buried under a mottled sheet;

‘that’s not her, i said’;

but it was;& i left through the back door;

went down an alley filled with broken glass & trash dumpsters covered in graffiti;
turned left;

then right;

then sat down at the curb, eyes filled with tears;


‘that’s not her,’ i said

‘that’s not her…’

About Jack Henry:

Jack Henry is a California based poet just back into writing after a ten-year rehab.  Recently published in Red Fez and a bunch of other places back in the day, including asinine poetry, bolts of silt, clockwise cat, decomp, gloom cupboard, oakbend review, oragami condom, rusty truck, and a few others.  It is rumored that Jack published Heroin Love Songs, a poetry journal, and that it may be coming back in 2019.
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