Arrangement in Reds and Grays
Nothing about my therapist says he’s trying to kill me,
except slowly by incompetence, but here he is,
softly cutting a diagonal through Hoppertown
in a brick-noir haze,
and here I am, in his gray bright office huddling damp
behind a file cabinet I know he doesn’t have.
No Steelers flag, no dog art; this must be a dream.
Fortunately, there are women:
assistants, midwives of billing, the “gals” he says
will schedule my next visit or fill my scripts.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds of gals.
As he enters, they pop into view
in magic bubbles, one after another. They lie for me.
“She didn’t come in.” “Across the street, maybe.”
Watches tight, their sensible arms ever conducting.
He freezes with his knife.
This world is suddenly cardboard.
I might yet get out alive.
He moves again, but it’s a broken TV or stop-motion,
and the gals are faster in their bewildering deflection,
and me I’ve disappeared altogether.
Copyright 2024 by Pamela Murray Winters
Pamela Murray Winters lives and writes in Bowie, Maryland. She’s working on a second full-length poetry collection and several chapbooks, so she will soon embark on the sometimes daunting process of submission (to publishers and the cosmos). When she’s not writing, she’s watching TV with her husband, playing with her cats, and/or competing in several quiz leagues. (Please let her know if your team needs a pop culture aficionado.)
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
