March 2015
I am a poet and an artist. I am also the managing editor of U.S.1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S.1 Poets' Cooperative in New Jersey. I often write ekphrastic poems about my own work and that of others. I had a long career as a social worker helping homeless families, abused and foster children, and those with mental health issues and/or AIDS. My seventh book of poetry, Running Down Broken Cement (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2014) is a testament to all those who struggle daily against the odds. My eighth book, The Owl Prince (retold fairy tales), is coming out in 2015. Please visit my website: www.nancyscott.net
Curse of the Three-Hour Ride
May you get lost on some back road
that leads into a swamp filled with
quicksand and I am there gloating
as you get sucked under, begging
for someone to toss you a rope.
May you sink slowly, muck clogging
your windpipe, legs useless, your chest
about to implode, remember
how you and your partner intent
on avoiding roads with stoplights
for hours trapped me in your Volvo,
my poor torqued back rigid with pain,
as you bounced along those rutted
farm lanes high-fiving each other.
May you die knowing your fate’s not
by my hand, this final back road’s
all of your doing. I’ll not shed a tear.
May you get lost on some back road
that leads into a swamp filled with
quicksand and I am there gloating
as you get sucked under, begging
for someone to toss you a rope.
May you sink slowly, muck clogging
your windpipe, legs useless, your chest
about to implode, remember
how you and your partner intent
on avoiding roads with stoplights
for hours trapped me in your Volvo,
my poor torqued back rigid with pain,
as you bounced along those rutted
farm lanes high-fiving each other.
May you die knowing your fate’s not
by my hand, this final back road’s
all of your doing. I’ll not shed a tear.
-first published in in Diane Lockward's, The Crafty Poet (Wind Publications, 2013)
©2015 Nancy Scott
©2015 Nancy Scott