16 Weeks

A poem by Jeremy DeHart

Sixteen weeks until I lay out the palm branches
in anticipation for your grand arrival back into
le détroit du Lac Érie upon the broken back of
the sieur de Cadillac.

Sixteen weeks in frozen mid-apocalypse
with the outspoken faceless ghosts from
under the floorboards groaning endlessly
below my ears clear into morning daybreak.

Sixteen weeks of anticipating the packages
that come with foolhardy joyrides deep on the
outskirts of sanity, peeling out real wild down the
interstates of brain waves.

Sixteen weeks of insomnia bursting my eyeballs
asunder liberating the blood-red wine onto the carpet
staining the sweaty backs of rats into nervous

Sixteen weeks of frightening stares from the
frigid army of empty flamingos that harbor
the outcome of American waste while the
fruit flies perform their ballets.

Sixteen more weeks of waiting anxiously
for some kind of outcome to this life thing.
Stuck somewhere between suicide and discovery,
am I losing my mind or am I gaining new
drug induced perceptions?