Wits’ End
At
wits’ end with her nonexistent fat,
The
laxatives concealed within her purse,
The
diet books, the missing monthly curse,
He
legged it, on the crest of one more spat.
Later,
his mood restored to good repair
By
half a dozen doubles, at the pub,
He
stumbled on her, bobbing in the tub,
Her
pallid lips a froth of bubbled air.
Two
paramedics whisked her out of there
And
huffed into her lungs and thumped her chest
For
better than an hour, without a rest,
And
saved her, only seconds from despair,
While
he succumbed to self-reproach, outside,
And
slunk away, and slit his throat, and died.
Peter
Austin
Peter Austin has been published in Ariel Chart once before, and his poetry has also appeared in The Atlanta Review, Blue Unicorn, The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse, Able Muse, The Hypertexts and Fourteen by Fourteen, as well as in journals/magazines in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Israel. He is a retired Professor of English.