or maybe a bad year
does it matter
what pendulum counts its own swings
she was having a bad day
sitting in the black
where vision is black
heart is black
and rooms are always dark
and too familiar
she was rocking in a worn corner chair
unaware that a leaf had dropped
from the last pin oak
on her block
and there was no other movement
the cat sat close still
feeling illness in the air
she was having a bad day
when the earth is too wobbly and wet
forgot about lithium
forgot tomorrow’s difference
got emptiness growing pain with each breath
perhaps it was seeing the dead squirrel
perhaps it was the echoing spikes of her mother’s voice
perhaps it was the moment she screamed or didn’t
when his lips pressed too hard against her teeth
or some other synapse recalled from
the cavernous veins of her life
some other time she tasted her own blood
she was having a bad day
when the cold won’t leave your marrow
she had the phone in one hand
her husband’s gun in the other
she wrote too many reasons in
tiny precise notes
loose rambly letters
she placed them with purpose
as a tidy testament to a life
she had a plan
she called the police
she wanted to be saved
she said someone was coming
someone with a gun
was coming
she was having a bad day
when only deception can tell a true story
her crazy friend was coming
to shoot the police
right there at the corner
she used to thumb through comic books
where noone would remember her now
without her hair done
she was having a bad day
when the sun coming through the blinds
has no wisdom to offer
she called the police
every fifteen minutes
she called her policeman husband
working in another town
to remind him to bring home
milk and cat food
she lifted the heaviness of her head to look forward
and rose from the chair
as if being carried slowly
from the bed bottom
of a forgotten moonlit lake
she was having a bad day
when all streets are narrow and no pedestrians can pass
and when she got there
her coat covering the nightgown she’d worn all day
her shoes untied and only half stepped into
her eyes unfocused but determined
there were four of them armed and uniformed
their shoes in a shiny straight line
ready to protect and serve
they saw the crazy friend from her phone call
they saw metal emerge from her long wool pocket
and she felt the torture of vacancy
the shrieking tornado gusts of madness
the ultimate endlessness of it
leave her body in streams of blood gone gone
she felt it leave her body
just like she would have felt it
the next day
watching the kids on the block play basketball
or the day after
changing the sheets
or in a few weeks
combing her hair
she was having a bad day
when luck loses its footing on the pavement
right there on a jersey corner
right in my home town
right on the very spot
where my own demon depression
had wrestled me out of joy
where redolent in adolescence
without gun or razor
i could not find
a reason for living
a moment more
where in my teenage self possesion
i had not thought to ask for
official assistance
as she had
i say she was having a bad day
the newspaper said suicide by police.
an officially designated diagnosis
not requiring investigation or indictment
she was having a bad day
and spoiling theirs too
they did what she wanted to do
but would not do
on her own
she was having a bad day
when insomnia cannot remember your doctor’s name
they did what the sickness demanded
she would have been so easy to wound
even with only one weapon
oh blessed relief that comes at the hands
of those with no fear of darkness
the same blessed relief that comes after
a trip to a pharmacy
she was having a bad day
and spoiling theirs too
they did their duty
the world is probably much safer now
they did their duty
wrote a report
spilled some coffee
and unlike me when i read about it
they slept through to a tomorrow
without seeing their own madness