“Leaver,” a poem by Audrey King

Leaver

of glasses
on airplanes;

papers
at home;

socks at the base
of beds;

of cell phones
upstairs;

of voicemails: hi honey,
where the hell are you;

of planets and bodies
and families and wives.

When it took
to your body,

grabbed hold; anchored;
plummeted; ultimately surrendered

the morphine
onto you, did you strike?

I imagine
a stunned crow;

talons chained
close on your chest.

But I know what I saw,
ears folded like a bunny

on a clear day in a pasture
waiting to be shot.

What could have been
years. Never looked back on.

Audrey King is a recent graduate of Bennington College where she studied Poetry and Dance. Her work is published in Harpur Palate. When she is not writing poetry about death, she is dyeing cloth with plants from around the neighborhood. She currently lives in Los Angeles. 

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