Episodic Sterility Poem by Patti Masterman

After she left, her hair
Lay glowing dully, in the shower,
Black, glittering with unshed venom
Perhaps scheming to paper-cut my hands
As I cleaned up afterward
Or maybe it wanted to tie itself in knots
About my throat as I slept
And even if there had been enough of it
To do the job,
It could not marshal its forces together enough.

On her head it was like a golden altar’d god
Commanding fear or respect
But once fallen,
I could grind my heel into it
Crush it into the ground
As if another dead stinking animal.

But far away, she glittered and schemed,
So far away, vanished like an eclipse
That no astronomer ever noted,
Or disappeared from the chart;
The corpse of a cold breeze
That never lent warmth
To any living being.