New Poetry by John Cullen

Forgetting You

Carelessness was too careful

for you---a borrowed car crunched to rubbish

and a lousy two hundred bucks 

seduced you to buy drinks

all night with red

abandon.   Any woman you met

became a target.   That’s why

I’m forgetting you.  

I remember you crouched, wedged

in fact, between toilet and wall, shivering and sniffling

while one room away your son cried

himself to sleep in a cut down television box

on layers of old blankets.  Your wife cried

at the table, “I can’t keep going,

I didn’t know what to do!”  

They stayed with us six months.  

“I’ll get it together,” you promised,

again.  You raged and threatened, then

asked for more money.                    

You ate your meal of sorrow, and drank indignation.

Finally, you moved out.

The stray cat returned two days

later, sniffing the yard, fearful

of any sound.   No one heard

from you for over a year, no phone call or birthday

present, no midnight distant call,

not even a promise leaked

on wet tissue.

Now we hear you died.   

No surprise.  You weren’t saving someone

from a burning building or even trying

to mow the lawn at whatever dump

you made your recent house.

Your neighbor called 911

after a week of not seeing you, and the police

found you bloated by alcohol

and heat in a rental hammock.   

Someone read in the paper

you had died, then asked

what happened to your wife and kid.

I won’t even say where

they live, patched up

clothing and minimum wage job

the best they can do for now.

They still have that photograph of you

on your bike, back once again

facing the camera.

But, hey!

None of it matters.  

I’m forgetting you 

as fast as I can.

I mean it. 

Complete. 

Forever.  

Erased.

This time

I mean it.

- © John Cullen 2021

John Cullen graduated from SUNY Geneseo and worked in the entertainment business booking rock bands, a clown troupe, and an R-rated magician.   Currently he teaches at Ferris State University and has published in American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, Harpur Palate, North Dakota Quarterly and other journals.   His chapbook, TOWN CRAZY, is available from Slipstream Press.