They were roommates with reputations.
Andy, a pacifist surf instructor.
Cathy, paranoid calls to local police.
Both in and out of rehab multiple times.
Detectives try to locate
the weapon used to bludgeon,
unravel what triggered
a chain of catastrophic events.
She was found lying in the driveway,
beaten into a coma, gash in her head.
They discovered him hiding in a bedroom,
incoherent, hands shaking, covered in blood.
Whatever precipitated this blow-up
is a mystery—neighbors heard yelling,
people screaming, saw a body
on the pavement, called 911.
Now she’s in ICU, unresponsive.
Him, arrested, jailed on a million dollar bond.
Jennifer Lagier has published ten books of poetry and in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and is a member of the Italian American Writers Association and Rockford Writers Guild. She co-edits the Homestead Review and maintains websites for Ping Pong Free Press, Henry Miller Library, The Monterey Poetry Review, and misfitmagazine.net. She also helps coordinate the Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium’s Second Sunday Reading Series. Her 2016 forthcoming books are: Harbingers (Blue Light Press), Scene of the Crime (Evening Street Press Helen Kay Chapbook Prize co-winner), and Camille Abroad (FutureCycle Press). Visit her website at: jlagier.net
In Between Hangovers 