Laura Gregory (series)

When They Ask Why You Didn’t Stop Him

You’ll want to explain how the alarm sounds
like a dishwasher looping
in the next room, hushing
“not you, not you” and who
would run from that,

but why is a blade,
a slap, a whip
that cracks in your ears
and echoes until white noise wails
like sirens.

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Imperative

You understood
when his smile said don’t
poke holes in the boat
and blame the river.

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Decisions, Decisions

Thrashing or still
weeping or carrying on
unarmed or disarmed,
silenced or willfully mute,
deft or dull, a razor
cuts either way.

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On Good Days

For long stretches you’ll forget
when breath finds an easy loop
from lips to lungs,
when legs glide,
when both knees hinge
like greased cranks on a carousel
and feet float like pretty horses
that never touch the track.

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Pull

Years later when you pass steep stairwells,
empty elevator shafts gaping black
and bottomless, wood chippers gnashing,
train tracks vibrating invisible math—
distance over time equals

what if

there’s a jolt and your feet
slip, leap, attach however briefly
to nothingness, to one
unsheathed flash of it before

you catch yourself,
straighten your coat, laugh
for the stranger who sits
in your blind spot,
finger on the trigger.

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Laura Gregory likes to aim high.