PRO SE

Pro Se

In the courthouse, we sit in wooden chairs
not made for long-term comfort
along with three other couples waiting
their turn to see the judge,
our seven loveless years
about to be adjudicated once and for final.

I whisper to my pro tem wife
that I have dreamed about telling her
how sorry I am, how sorry,
like trying to convince a priest of contrition
and knowing I am a prisoner
about to plead my case to the parole board.

For the first time I see her cry,
start to cry as she rises and goes
to the bathroom. The bailiff calls our names.
I point toward the ladies’ room, and he gives five
Fingers. She returns, her mascara neat
as a glass of whiskey we will soon drink alone.

A Centenarian Dreams of Riding Horseback

A Native American galloping
through virgin forest
of the Great Plains,
the smell of pine needles
freed by the horse’s hooves,
the pulse of the hearts
of deer, necks crooked and still,
noses listening for rain,
body melding with Appaloosa,
saddle of white oak,
buffalo hide with winter curls,
bridle, a mere rope around the neck,
in cavities of dead trees
the concert of nesting birds,
cardinals, flickers, scarlet tanagers,
the destination, a horizon
where ancestors await
to hear a new story.

On Second Thought

I don’t want family bedside when I die.
I want that helter-skelter-hair girl I used
like borrowed jumper cables.
I want to hold her fortune teller’s hand,
smell her borrowed Black Opium,
feel her weightless kiss on my cheek,
the kind Judas laid on Jesus,
hear her say my name, sotto voce,
a confession where she forgives me
for eating her mother’s Boscaiola
without bringing a bottle of Chianti,
for hearing her cry and not asking why,
for the abortion, me three months gone,
where only a sonogram survived.

Don Narkevic: Buckhannon, WV. MFA National University. Poetry appears in The Trillium, Agape, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Spire Light, Adelaide Literary Magazine and New Feathers Anthology. In 2022, Main Street Rag published a novella of poetry entitled, After the Lynching. In 2024, The Potomac Playmakers produced From Birth, a one-act play.