Written in response to the poem, “The Story of the End of the Story,” by James Galvin.

By now a lot has happened: 
From a bridge over water, soaring,
Landing, scraping, screaming, 
Angry and wondering if the last call
Home was one without a closing “I love you.”
Screeching, screaming, popping, buzzing,
Crashing, crumpling, bursting, burning
Glass shards cutting 
Vision disappearing
Upside-down, hanging
Clawing to stop choking
Hands empty, expecting 
An eyeball but only bleeding
Head and ears stinging to
Chemicals singing
So many cuts numbing to 
Windshield kissings…

Two kids in the back of his car
Arrested: three charges
God knows how many drinks
Two flights home
Three falls down stairs
Four MRIs, two CTs,
Forty-five doctor visits in
Five months waiting for
How many particles of glass
Stuck in my body like some Abrahamic promise
Some messianic hope from
Some Bedouin prophecy foreshadowed in
Some Persian ghazal hidden inside
Some Russian doll in a cheap Floridian tourist trap
Each with layers of nonsense and memory
Each hiding some deified suffering my body refused to let go
Each refracting an unknown internal light sunburning and scarring its fleshy enclave

By now I should be better
By now I should be sleeping
By now silence should return
By now I should be over this
By now he should be out of jail
By now I shouldn’t be tripping
By now he should know I can’t hear him when he speaks from the living room
By now they should know what’s wrong with me
By now: my siren sings.