Love in a Field of Poppies

by R. Nikolas Macioci

It's dark. We sit in wicker rockers
on the front porch, silence between us.
You lean your head back and doze,
mouth open like a dead fish.
My suspicions come like worms after a rain,
crawl into consciousness over and over.
I nudge your arm. You awaken,
and, like a hinge on a door, I squeak
out the question. “What drugs
have put wings in your brain, oblivion
on your face.” You fidget, hesitant to speak,
to open the box with a snake inside.
“Heroin,” a weighty word, burns the air .
You take a deep breath, flick a cigarette butt
onto carefully manicured lawn.

I tear from my chair, stride into the house,
rip open cellophane on a pack of peanut
butter crackers, order you into the car.

When I drive you home, your head lulls
against the side window. I drop you
at your house. A sudden hand
of lightning reaches across the sky,
its fingers jagged and white.
As I pull from the curb, thunder grumbles
an echo of something killed in the name of truth.