Cover Story

The woman has no place to be put,
the man is restless; his feet are slipshod,
The child won't eat greens,
he prefers beetroot slices from a sickly can,

The family may once have been human,
now they have been reduced to cartoons,
caricatures tossed into a cardboard box
and left out on the curb in the rain.

Soon enough, but not right away,
a teenager discovers the disintegrating box,
he puts the woman in a safe warm place,
and waits until the night finds him alone.

The restless man and beetroot boy
float away along the gutter,
until they both fall into a drain.
Paper-thin alligators
chew on wet talk-bubbles.

In the woods behind the school,
soft **** magazines
are buried in shallow graves,
so that the priest will not find them.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2024

Poem

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Rodgers Avatar
January 27, 2024 at 9:27 AM
Eric, "Cover Story" floored me. Haunting imagery - disintegrating family, gutter gators, buried secrets. You expose fragility through cartoon distortion, leaving a profound impact. Powerful & unsettling. Can't wait to hear more. - Daniel
Ashford Avatar
January 27, 2024 at 10:57 AM
Thank you, Daniel, it is encouraging to recieve such warm feedback on this one, I thought it perhaps to abstract but you understood it most clearly. Respect. E.
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