Shaken Phone Syndrome

by Anita Garriott

 

You stagger in

after a gutload of work

the dark eats the leftovers

you couldn’t choke down

you lay your bones near me

the phone cries through the night

I want to shake it

you calm its fits

and here, love,

as morning peels back

your eyelids

there is no gray

like the gray in your face

you start your transfusion

of thick black brew

and stagger back out

to another day of healing.

 

***************************************************************************************************************************

Anita Garriott  has degrees in English, psychology, and nursing, and has worked as an intensive care nurse.  She is a life-long student of literature and poetry and lives with her husband and three children in Oakland, a town she passionately loves and hates.

***************************************************************************************************************************