Domenic Scopa, “When Lithium Stops Working

When Lithium Stops Working

The sounds that highways make speak mostly to desperate hitchhikers.

The sky is screaming, and you are somewhere, waiting,

plotting your night. Maybe you’ll go drink yourself to death–

I, myself, was fifteen when I murdered, and if someone questions, say I’m still searching

for advice on where to stash a body. The car windows are luminous and warm,

but I’m in the murky aquarium of my mind, afraid, again, palms pressed to glass, I’m cornered.

Go away, I say. You laugh and lean a little closer. I don’t want you here, but you don’t listen to me

and never will. What else can we do? Sitting, side by side, in a car we’ve driven many miles.

In the deranged humidity. In the woodpecker’s persistence.

Our relationship a lily pad on the surface of a river nobody sails anymore.