Necrotic Love


What you never knew was the way he
sneered behind your back, his lungs still
full of your wifely breath after long episodes

of fondling. The way he stroked your coarse
hair, like a stand of pearls, newly knotted
needing softening over the tight pull

of a too hard knee. Who would disagree
you’d think to yourself. It must be me.
And somewhere within his labyrinth-heart

wires crisscrossed, pumping unfaithfulness
between every other erection in massive
doses until you were left with only a thimbleful

of fluid each time he confirmed what you
thought to be love; violating your womanliness
with his fickle -face. Wake-up you doormat!

You Queen of massive blunders! Harms-
way is calling your name in grandiose
style. But stay awhile, you say, maybe someday

he’ll think your plain-Jane-life appealing.
And you’ve mastered the art of coquettishness
so well. You can roll your eyes like nobody's

business with lashes fluttering faster
than swatters on flies; giddy from the kill
if only you’d look to his cavernous stare,

beyond mouthparts wet with flesh.
Soon you’d see; nothing’s there but
a torso with legs incessantly moving,

like a routine behavior to rid his disease.


Carol Lynn Grellas is a four-time Pushcart nominee and the author of A Thousand Tiny Sorrows (March Street Press) and two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers, Pudding House Press and Object of Desire, Finishing Line Press. She is widely published in magazines and online journals including most recently, The Centrifugal Eye, Oak Bend Review and deComp, with work upcoming in OVS and Saw Palm Florida Literature and Art. She lives with her husband, five children and a little blind dog who sleeps in the bathtub.