Household Poisons

The afternoons are the worst,

the brightness not fading fast

enough when you have gone

nowhere and seen no one. You

linger in the valley of dry bones

when the past threatens to break

your heart. You scroll the channels

on Sirius, certain there’s something

better than the Grateful Dead station

that has been playing for weeks,

but no matter how many songs you hear,

you always end up back with the Dead.

Michelle Brooks has published three collections of poetry, Make Yourself Small, (Backwaters Press), Pretty in A Hard Way (Finishing Line Press), and The Pretend Life (Atmosphere Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Live Boy, (Storylandia Press). A native Texan, she has spent much of her adult life in Detroit.