The glint of the scalpel in your lovesick eyes told me all I needed to know how you savored the first cut the pooled blood the boarded-up porch I left a note that read who am I to stand in the way of such a poignant romance? and I walked I told myself you will grow tired of the strip-mining tired of dragging heavy limbs through trailer parks but you didn’t and soon left notes of your own Bloodless traitor you wrote dyke faggot
I meant to tell you
today
I saw them
unearth our testaments
note the stains
catalog all the rest
—
Michael Getty is a writer and educator who lives with his husband in St. Louis, Missouri. His writing has appeared in PresenTense, The Healing Muse, The Road Not Taken, Turnip Truck(s), and is forthcoming in Poetica.
Photo by: Ana Prundaru