# #burning Boyfriends Poem by Dee Wright

She burns
her old boyfriends

watches
each

(one by one)

writhe & wriggle

trying to get out
of the situation

their lies
(now as then)
had put them in.

Their lies
going up in flames

their smiles
nothing now but ash

& the charred
remains of photographs

(here an ear
there a hand)

survives
the auto-de-fe

almost as if
she couldn’t forget

her very favourite
bits of them

her many & various
men.

Now they are
nothing

but smoke
drifting over next door neighbours hedge

leaving little smudges
on the wind tossed washing.

She felt she
had escaped

their power
to hold her.

“Well, that’s
wipe the slate clean! ”

“Let’s start
again! ”

The sound of her
Rabbit vibrator

louder than
next door’s lawn mower.