Full Circle
Brakes are set on my wheelchair by the window
of some triple-chin mountain reclining Hitchcock
movie I sneak down and shudder on the staircase
as birds beaks blood blast across the screen I push
my face against as our mow-the-lawn-every-Friday
neighbor Ed is lowered into a squad car in handcuffs
after his wife is found buried beneath a bank of lilies
wafting throughout the house when I still think Mom
is coming home from the hospital listening to Dad’s
speech on baseball and Churchill over dinner peas
breathing in and out tripping to brother’s Led Zeppelin
beat by a husband who keeps his nails sharp
turn as we snort angel dust three cars on the highway
my sister sucks in and hands me a joint of my hips replaced
with metal railings the nurse snaps shut my lips
when you say it’s a snag in our marriage ripe
with the bloom of wedding photographs
that freeze our faces happy
as the lady in white shoves me
from side to side to secure
my sagging diaper

Meg Tuite is author of a novel-in-stories, Domestic Apparition, a short story collection, Bound By Blue, and won the Twin Antlers Collaborative Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging, as well as five chapbooks of short fiction, flash, and poetic prose. She teaches at Santa Fe Community College, is a senior editor at Connotation Press, an associate editor at Narrative Magazine, fiction editor here at Bending Genres Journal, and editor of eight anthologies. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines, over fifteen anthologies, nominated nine times for the Pushcart Prize, five-time Glimmer Train finalist, placed 3rd in Bristol Prize, and Gertrude Stein award finalist. Her blog: http://megtuite.com.