Casting her eyes to heaven
she meandered through what was.
If only
she’d sensed his other half,
those gentle hands fisted as
love pummeled, possessed too far.
She lie now, crumpled to the floor, that
human mass he abandoned in the night.

Sometimes poetry can be written to call attention to an endemic problem. This is dedicated to all those who face domestic abuse. Written for dVerse in a unique format that takes one or two lines from another poem and uses these words, in order, as the end words of the new poem. Photo credit: Linda Lucerne

Ferlinghetti’s poem titled 21 is from the 60th Anniversary Edition, City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology, edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

Heaven
was only half as far that night
at the poetry recital
listening to the burnt phrases
when I heard the poet have
a rhyming erection
then look away with a
lost look
‘Every animal’ he said at last
‘After intercourse is sad’
But the back-row lovers
looked oblivious
and glad