Things Impossible to Swallow • poems by Pamela Garvey • number 24 in the 2River Chapbook Series • 2River

Without Me

It’s as if you didn’t breathe, eat, shiver or sigh. Crates stacked
to go and blocking doorways, how can I forget smashed
dishes, lies, cruel words? Why do I want you
to miss me so much you can’t stop trembling to steer the car,
swerve into leaves falling to the wet street and slam
into a truck? Doctors will pluck glass
from your body, patch it with sutures. Who would walk away
from those scars? When you wake in a morphine haze,
it is my name you will drool.