recovery

By Karl Koweski

two hours after the removal
of my wife’s uterus
I’m able to visit her
in the cold anonymity
of her hospital room
in the maternity ward

strange, I think
since she’s as far from
maternity as
I feel from matrimony
yet here we are

I grimace when she groans
I smile, thin-lipped
when she attempts to mask
her pain with a brave face
this familiar façade
my every expression
calculated to deliver
the maximum appearance
of empathy

I deposit ice chips
between her cracked lips
sexually inert tongue
birthing from her mouth
and I wonder when is
the soonest I can leave
without seeming to be
a callous husband

when the cute nurse
enters to record the vitals
I excuse myself to
the bathroom where I pop
a Lortab scavenged from
my wife’s purse

as the nurse performs
her own wooden dance
of enforced sympathy
I flip open my cell phone
checking the messages
I ignore the texts
sent by my daughter
ask how her mom’s
surgery went in favor
of the messages from
my lover informing me
how her pussy is so wet
she can’t wait for me
to touch it

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shrapnel around the heart

By Karl Koweski

the boy sits
beneath the shadow
of the juniper tree
album splayed open
on his lap

his fingers caress
the pieces of his
collection

a friend joins him
an album of his own
tucked under his arm

and they fall into
comparing favorites

the boy proudly displays
rusted corkscrews,
shards of spark plug ceramic
two nails twined
into a crucifixion form
pulled from
the radiator of a bus
near the detonation of
a female suicide bomber
in Tel Aviv

his friend showcases
his own crown jewel
a ragged circle
laced with silver thorns
his father brought home
from work, last week,
pulled from the chest
of a five year-old girl

you can still see
the blood on it,
the boy marvels,
holding the disc up
to the fading sunlight

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breakwater

By Karl Koweski

if you remain in your car
all you can see
is the breakwater.
ragged chunks of concrete
pieces of rebar jutting out
like mummified fingers.

Lake Michigan lays there
a dead ocean
indistinguishable from
its mortuary slab.
smell the embalming fluid,
a noxious mixture
of detergent and petroleum
byproducts pumped in
by the refinery and
the surrounding mills.

after climbing the breakwater
and finding a smooth boulder
of concrete to perch on
I watch the February storm
approach from the northeast.
the sky and sea seem
to merge creating a
seamless shirt of the world.

ten years gone
and nothing really changes.
Chicago still glimmers to
the west;
the distillation towers
of Amoco refinery sulks
in the east.
and all I ever succeeded
in doing this last decade
was killing time.
I murdered ten years
so cleanly
I didn’t leave so much
as a witness.

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