He writes so many love letters,

he will soon forget which ones were for you.

He gets tired of you and fills your drink

with rat poison, but gives you the wrong drink,

confusing you with his other lover

who loves low-fat milk.

You violently pour him down

the drain. His message in a bottle

was a lie and why would you agree

to poison a rat or another woman unless

your own heart had been poisoned.

His letters were venomous, too,

drunk with debauchery and promises

he never intended on keeping.

A cad is always a cad even when a cadaver,

but a saintly man is never around when you need one.

You can only whistle in the dark

for the mysterious to ride in,

hoping it’s not on Nightmare, the horse of Death,

hoping just once, for a white knight,

even a slightly dented, tarnished one will do.

One not too burnt from facing a dragon.

But, nooooo. It’s always death, death, death

pulled out of your row of Tarot cards.

Mutiny on deck, with darkness in his breath.

His head holding many closed caskets filled with spoiled milk.

Juliet Cook is brimming with black, grey, silver, purple, and dark red explosions. She is drawn to poetry, abstract visual art, and other forms of expression. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. You can find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com. Follow her on Twitter @nonvanilla.

Martin Willitts Jr lives in Syracuse, New York. He has won numerous awards and prizes for poetry. He has 26 chapbooks including two national contest winners, and 20 full-length collections including two national contest winners. He is an editor for The Comstock Review.