Poem by Mitchell Grabois

Jodi

Image by Hlif Asgrimsdottir, The Knife Lady. Courtesy of Flickr.

Jodi Arias responded to
my Match.com ad
after 2013 we’ll begin to forget her
and in five years
the next generation
won’t recognize the name

any more than they recognize Love Canal

but she was the one who stabbed her boyfriend
so many times
strangled him
shot him
he was a monster in a horror film
and she couldn’t rest until she was sure
he was dead.

In response to my ad
she wrote:

Yes, I have some baggage, but don’t we all?
No, I don’t know how long I’ll live, but does anyone?
Sure, I talk in platitudes, but who is capable of original thought these days?
Yes, we may have to suffer a commuter marriage, but many people do.
I’m going through a hard patch right now, “twenty miles of bad road,” but again…

I thought:
all those things are true
Jodi is a modern woman
and a philosopher to boot
she’s squared away
and life with her would not be boring.

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois’ poems and fictions have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He is a regular contributor to The Prague Revue, and has been thrice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for 99 cents from Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition