I was named celebrity
judge for Nashville’s foolishly
popular pet parade. My column

printed three times a week complete
with a headshot. That’s me reporting
on death, crime, the newest

Pizza Hut. I juiced mundane
specifics, the tangled
details—How many guns

in the arsenal?  Exact time
of death? I rarely fessed
up to what was mushrooming

inside me like the rhizomes
of a rootbound Hibiscus.
Please understand, I was

a success, a seasoned
professional. I met brutal
deadlines & kept my workface

face intact until, after clocking
overtime, I’d unlock my front
door & collapsed on the over

stuffed loveseat. Unopened bills
scattered on the floor like dead
trout. Once-green Calathea withered

to bacon-brown curls. One night
Princess Maragaret, my Goldenface
Parakeet, dropped dead in the cage.

Hard to talk about, I still
want to run. A family of mice moved
into the folds of the davenport, where they

begat chestnut-colored babies, each the size
of a coat button. Once a tiny one pranced
across my blue gym shoes. Was she

trying to save me from success, my personal
Chernobyl? I got better slowly. Recovery
at the speed of a rusty tricycle. No one

at the newspaper knew why I took
an extra week of vacation, that I’d started
meds, that my boyfriend left me

but came back determined
to help. It took four days to clear out
the trash, pack up what I could save.

                ~ with thanks to Coleman Davis ~