POEM: Contingency

Contingency

I had a plan.
For if it happened again.
A late-night,
tiptoe-to-the-kitchen,
find-the-right-drawer,
then-back-upstairs plan.
I came up with it as a kid,
never expecting to need it
as a middle-aged man.
But there I was in the kitchen
with his rage-trembling body.
I went for the drawer
but she stepped between us
so I ran for the car
and drove away.

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 30 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.