Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

I ask you if strawberry rhubarb pie is always this bitter
& you say no, it's probably just the poison you baked it with.
It was almost a classic when I laced your cigaretted with gasoline
so when you stepped outside to smoke you exploded.
Laughing, I said that you should have quit long ago.
But that didn't suffice as revenge
for the time you took an electric saw to my head as I slept
so that when I opened my mouth to brush my teeth
in the morning, the top half of my head fell to the floor.
One of us will end up getting hurt, I muse
as I double over, grasping my stomach
& vomiting up blood in my body's futile attempt
to rid itself of the arsenic.