April Salzano- A Poem

Euthanasia

She put him right

out of his misery,

shoved the whole couch

he was always sleeping

on right into the middle

of a busy intersection

in front of their house in suburbia.

Semi’s coming off I-80 blew

air horns in disgust and engaged

ordinance-forbidden jake brakes,

able to swerve and miss him

altogether. He slept through it all,

the crashing Amish buggy,

the near death by minivan, the whizz

of many a motorcycle veering

onto the berm. A speeding car

with a less skilled college student

texting while driving did the trick,

snuffed him out. Cushions lay

in tatters on the road

while his wife sat in the empty space

in the living room, eating popcorn

in front of the window.

Bio: April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, The Mindful Word, Napalm and Novocain, The Second Hump, Jellyfish Whispers, The South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal, The Weekender Magazine, and is forthcoming in Inclement , Poetry Quarterly, Decompression, and Daily Love.  She is working on her first collection of poetry and an autobiographical novel on raising a child with Autism.