Yvonne Amey

You Won't Call Me Back

Listen
New Jersey.
The globe is on fire.
All my bloody patients are dead.
Don't know the street rate for an eight ball these days.
Acrid taste of the swallow.
A rankle gangrenes across my nimbostratus sky.
It's a terrible sadness we live in.
How can I swallow truth when I'm too busy gnawing on the memory of    you
said my sweater was beautiful.

 

White Deer Run

I don't remember much about you though you pronounced beatitudes correctly in rehab
and you were my only "intellectual" friend there  and  I remember how they separated
us like lab rats into opposing dorm rooms because we didn't want much to do with our
fellow rehabers and the professionals had their theories they thought we were the perfect
recipe for relapse wrapped up in our exclusionary staying up late together watching TV
we stayed away from the needle sharers the heavily medicated and other liars and we'd
discuss mutual dope dealers back home and the therapists didn't know your long shaggy
hair with an 80's flair and opiate addiction weren't my thing and they couldn't see how
in love you were with a much older crack woman back home who still lived with her mom
but if you're reading this know you made me laugh when we both had lost everything.

 

Yvonne Amey’s  poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Tin House, The Florida Review, and elsewhere.