I paced my walk today
along the wood’s edge,
prowled,
furious at the maples—
ungroomed and their cowlick branches
stuck in-the-air salute,
but they are not all I know of betrayal.
So my ex-husband wants to battle?
Over my dead body.
Righteously I march towards
the breaking creek
and haul a stone three times fist-size
dragging the past out
to line it up on the bridge rail
for a pass and review.
I name it by his last name
and heave the plunker
into silt water depths.
He only plunges to the bottom,
imagining his bound hands, no struggle
I don’t pray over him.
There can only be one leader
and this is my revolution.
Jen May is a founding member of Open Sky Poets near Chicago, IL. She has been a featured reader at Waterline Writers and A-Town Poetics. May is published in the Journal of Modern Poetry Issue 19: Poems of Protest. Her debut chapbook Armchair Locomotion is now available and her second book, Battle Cry was released in August.