Today Poem by Noah Smits

Today was the best day of Tom's life.
You may have awoken and dreaded its coming
but unfiltered joy yet has him in its throes;
the effects still radiant
in a soul finally soothed.
Today you may frown, unaware
that Tom's binding anxiety has departed its captive
in a flash of passion
not unlike that
which rocked his starry predecessor.
But a thousand miles away
Frank's dear old mother of sixty-three
was tipped over in her wheelchair
and raped against her apartment wall.
Frank arrived a half-hour later
brought by a muffled desperate call.
One look in the room and he reached for his knife—
it all ended there
in a boiling stench
of blood and bleach.
This was the best day of Tom's life.