John Grey
Poetry

Photo Credit: Kevin Dean/Flickr (CC-by-nc-sa)

Half a Dylan box set—
I take the early years,
you get the breakup stuff
and the religion.

Two televisions so that split is easy.
The 40-inch, stuck for life
on American Idol, is yours.
Its smaller brethren,
lover of all things Shark Week,
comes to me.

You don’t want the microwave,
so that’s mine.
In return, I concede you
your grandmother’s prize dishes.

Strange how everything
divides so easily,
as if there always was
my stuff and your stuff
and we just didn’t know it.

And the little that we did share
like the bed, the couch,
the kitchen table,
I can take to with a chainsaw,
wield that implement
like someone from a drive-in horror flick,
hack them equitably down the middle.

All that togetherness we pledged
ten years ago
was begging for a cutting implement
to sever the join,
to save us all this trouble.
But back in those times, my love,
I could never get my hands free.

John Grey is an Australian-born poet. Recently published in Oyez Review, Rockhurst Review and Spindrift with work upcoming in New Plains Review, Big Muddy Review, Willow Review and Louisiana Literature. Email: jgrey10233[at]aol.com