Smooth Stones

 
 
 
How’s my summer?

Why, thank you for asking.

Who can complain, with the weather so fine?

The garden’s great, I fit into my thin shorts,

 

and I’ve embraced my suicidal ideations again.

It’s not like the last time this happened,

long ago – it’s been twenty years.

Back then I lived in bed

 

and went days without a shower.

This morning I’m out early pruning,

wearing a clean shirt, earrings, and lipstick,

wondering how much blood I could draw from my shears.

 

They’re more fantasies than rehearsals –

how everyone will feel such regret –

but the reactions are my biggest invention.

Truth is, no one would much care,

 

so I’ll keep caressing my ideations

like smooth stones in my pocket.

 
 
 

Sheila Wellehan's poetry is recently featured or forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Entropy, Menacing Hedge, Prole (UK), Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Visit her online at www.sheilawellehan.com.