I love this late January sky like I love
a wart I pick at absently, like skin
itching, dry and flaked from the arid
air, like this barely heated house, like
mud-caked shoes right before I step
into the car, like a traffic jam—me listening
to the Allman Brothers Band on repeat playing
“Whipping Post,” like an un-dusted shelf
with unread books pushed back askew, like
that “talk” we put off (or at least I did), like
bits of food caught in my teeth and a week
of eyes-wide nights, sleepless, like a toothache.
Like the time right before the wet-lip kiss
which stays the fight and promises this.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 6.
Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio with his wife and writing companion, Debbie. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have appeared or upcoming in Whale Road Review, Only Poems, Rattle, OneArt, Abandon Journal, and Minyan. His chapbook, A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, is published by SheilaNaGig.
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