Everything is Very Broken
This is a sat-nav error.
I don’t recall making three left turns
but this feels circular.
Last time, when you failed to turn up dead,
we got back in the car and drove,
turned and turned the map
but it stayed upside down.
I don’t remember what colour your eyes are
having never looked into them.
Your voice is not familiar when it says happiness
is not the same
as the relief of being yanked free
from a bathroom window
as flames engulf the house.
Fist-sized chunks
“the vehicles are further reduced to fist-sized chunks of metal… glass, plastic and rubber are removed from the mix, and the metal is sold”
We fuck in my car
on your driveway
after a meal out.
Later that evening
you kick in my passenger door
to punish me.
Each morning that follows
I push my fingertips
into the gnarled dent
until one day I crash
on the way home from work
and the car gets towed away.
I picture metal resisting
the heavy jaws that mangle it
into a neat cube.
I wonder
who will recover me and
if I will have my useful
components removed
before I am compressed
into a convenient shape.
______________________
Sallyanne Rock was born in the Black Country and now lives in Worcestershire. Her poetry appears in various journals online and in print, including Eye Flash and Finished Creatures. She is the recipient of the Creative Future Writers' Award Gold Prize for Poetry 2019.