Michelle Brooks – Poetry

Darkness, My Name Is

How Garland tied the string
around the neck, I will never
know.  The rattlesnake slithered
in a cardboard box until my
mother put it in the deep freeze.
It didn’t die right away.  Neither
did Garland.  God watches out
for drunks and sleepwalkers. I
know.  I have been both, but
the only leash I managed to fasten
around any neck was my own.

*        *        *

Self Rescue

Today I go into the water.
It’s not cold because I can’t
feel anything.  No jacket
needed, life or otherwise.
I get lost in your words,
just a little further.  My own
voice in the wilderness telling
me the day of salvation is
at hand. Why have I not
repented? Sink or swim, dive
at your own risk.  There’s blood
in the water.  Today is the first
day of what passes for your
life.  Keep moving toward
shore.  Even though you can
see it, too bad it’s still miles away.

*     *     *

Michelle Brooks has published a poetry collection, Make Yourself Small (Backwaters Press), and a novella Dead Girl, Live Boy (Storylandia Press). She spends her free time watching the Detroit Pistons and wishing she could write with Mike White for the HBO show Enlightened.