Diane Corson, Cave Art (detail)
“One More Avoidable Crime Scene “
Our neighbor’s vehicle hasn’t moved in over a week.
I want to send a text to see if she’s okay, if there’s anything
she needs. My lover tells me that I’m too much like Mrs. Kravitz
in Bewitched. My eyes burn when I look into the sky
at fizzy white clouds that bottom out across the road on the ridge
where maples used to hug the soil. Dandelions have taken over
the backyard and molehills large enough to appear
like mountain ranges to the black ants that wait for crumbs
from our next outdoor party. I swear I don’t know where I’m going
or why I feel the urge to burn everything I own.
Just yesterday I was on a rib boat off the coast of Iceland, kissing
blue whales and breathing in their salt breath. I think I must have been
born Nordic because it’s the only place where things make sense.
So what if our neighbor has been bludgeoned to death with a golf club
and all she needed to live was someone to care enough to ask,
Are you okay?
___________________________
John Dorroh
Review by Mykyta Ryzhykh
Only one question: “Are you okay?”. And many, many words, questions, answers, references to pop culture, which hang over the last line-question like a sheer cliff.
Now, every time I honor poetry, I will ask myself: “Are you okay?”.
Review by Nancy Sobanik
John Dorroh’s poem poses important questions- where does the boundary between neighborly concern and nosiness start and end? Are we our brother and sister’s keeper, or should we mind our own business? Life has lost its sense of adventure and become insulated. The backyard has devolved into a disheveled place, echoing the sense of loneliness and personal disintegration felt by the narrator. The enjambed lines emphasize the narrator’s internal soliloquy of thoughts.