Poetry Slam
The poet laureate didn’t wear a helmet
though she knew she should
but she had to admit: she was vain
She liked the way her long grey-blonde curls
flew out behind her
and she liked the way it felt,
like freedom
though she recognized that as trite
While she was distracted
by words cascading in her head
she crashed into a garbage truck
flew over the handlebars
and her delicate skull impacted
the unyielding steel
She went unconscious
woke up to see a man hovering above her
concern on his handsome face
This must be the man of my dreams, she thought
and this time, wasn’t in good enough shape
to recognize it as a cliché
Metaphors broke apart
and senselessly recombined
The swinging elegance of her brain
devolved into literary machinery
on auto-pilot
She’d always taken the road less travelled
and had always profited from it
but now
dazed and confused in a hospital bed
surrounded by local admirers
middle-aged women
whose faces seemed distorted
almost alien
she wished she had worn
a helmet
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.
Inky Interview: Author Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois from Denver, Colorado
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