She moves like the unraveling of dawn, each muscle
creeping to a slow wake in her wheelchair.
In the Kroger checkout, her husband holds her
chair handle in one hand, a basket in the other,
before he releases to set his groceries, cheerfully,
on my lane.
I smile at her,
meet the open-eyed puncture of her blue gaze.
Five cans later her hand stutters into air, wobbly wave.
I start talking and her husband steps forward,
dapper, bow-tied and outlined
with suspenders. He's all smiles, loves this:
the bounce of my voice in his ears
while his wife sits, mute, head drifting, her neck giving
to its weight like origami to a finger's press. He and I,
we parry puns. She used to be a part of this.
She used to stand between us
writing out checks in her slow, shaky hand
...
First off, you need to write that one about him buying her eyeshadow. Like pronto. Or fit that in here somehow. The line: “before he releases to set his groceries, cheerfully,” feels really clogged up and I think it’s because of the three poly-syllabic words in it. And releases sounds stiff. What about something like “ In the Kroger checkout, her husband holds her chair handle in one hand, sets his groceries down on my lane with the other.” Just something that reads quicker. The separation of the two stanzas is intriguing, but I’m not sure how it works just yet. Why did you decided to set them apart that way instead of lowering the second stanza? Also, the first two lines are beautiful, man. Great verbs, great simile. Just plain old great. This line also sounds a bit clogged: “while his wife sits, mute, head drifting, her neck giving” because of all her actions. I would take out the middle two because they aren’t important at this moment. Maybe you could put them in somewhere else, but it’s all too much in one line.
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