MINUTES FROM SIGNING THE PAPERS

We lingered in the street
in front of our lawn she’d just trimmed

in front of the flowerbeds I’d just weeded,
and the breeze smelled of our labor,

azalea spice and tangy grass.
Sweaty and silent beside our bicycles,

we knew we leaned one ride away
from signing the papers,

from licking a gummy envelope
destined for some divorce lawyer

two hundred miles away in Kansas City.
We put feet to pedals and spun them,

a dull clicking that set off a brood of cicadas
who deafened the neighborhood.

We spoke in tandem for a moment but realized
we couldn’t hear each other over the din. 

Dave Malone is a poet from the Missouri Ozarks. His newest volume, Tornado Drill, is forthcoming from Aldrich Press in 2022. He can be found online at davemalone.net or on Instagram @dave.malone.