Archives :: Bob Bradshaw

Katalina and Ted

Appeared in the Fall 2005 issue.

When Ted bolted for the neighbor's,
rolling with her naked in a field,
there was no choice: you left.

There was no calling you home.

You looked for months from your apartment
onto the street below, the air
suddenly as deep as a canyon.

Ted would occasionally visit,
pawing the ground, his head
lowered. Last week he found you

like a bird strung on a barbed
wire. Your shadow swinging
in the door frame. Your head
tilted upward, as if you couldn't

face him. He wrapped his arms
around you. Your feet no longer

swinging, something in him snapped.

He screamed and fled, his past
following him. He became a horse
hitched to a burning wagon.

View bio information and additional poems published in Half Drunk Muse on the author's main archive page.