Poetry by Mark Danowsky

                ​Josh Meek CC




​The Cycle

Nights away from you
among tobacco fields instead of smoke

still, the smell of chicken
farms, soy fields lining the path
to market or laundromat 

Marietta, where the Susquehanna comes together
for a moment by broken town
overtaken by mayflies

A world of William Carlos Williams scenes
audiences now cringe to consider too close

Folks insist this is not my life
but back with you, blackout drunk

Me & the dog hiding 
in my home office bunker

The dog pawing my knees
us fearing for sleep
or the next jagged broken bottle

The glass of you leaning towards darkness
having taken away nights without giving back days

This is what giving in looks like--

An hour of reckoning 

Glitz mistaken for beauty

Who could ever prepare?

Now, on the other side, open wounds on display

The way you tapped out — a plateau 

That one call that never came

It is required I am worse for this





Domestic
 
When the police arrive
you are passed out in the bathroom
slumped up against the door
 
I quietly unlock the front door
to let the officers inside
 
I whisper that you are passed out
in the bathroom and ask them to
be cautious
 
I am afraid if they wake you
in an astonished frenzy
you might lash out
 
I do not know the protocol
I do not know their training
 
I am afraid what may happen
if the officers wake you
 
The giant West Virginia cop enters
our basement apartment
followed by his backup
 
The giant West Virginia cop says
Are you ok?
 
The cop asked me if I was ok



Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.
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