red like stop signs
Red like mailbox flags
raised up patriotically, boasting
of love letters and pen pals,
of licked envelopes and sacred stamps.
Red like brake lights,
glowing hot on the backs
of idle cars in narrow driveways.
Red like ruby gloss,
painted on split lips,
strawberry-scented and
glinting in the setting sun.
Red like apple skins
peeled back from dewy white
flesh, left out to dry.
Red like puffy tear-filled eyes,
caught off guard by arid words
which blew from trusted mouths
I kissed just yesterday.
Red like cartoon hearts
which shudder and jerk like muffled sobs,
then crack and break like crimson glass.
Red like stop signs
which I speed past
as I drive home
from where you said
goodbye.
Justis Ward is a Georgia native whose writing, more often than not, speaks to the agonizing beauty of suffering. Currently, his favorite “flavor” of such literary expression is persona—dawning the masks of imagined persons with the hope of rediscovering our world through their eyes. Justis recently completed his MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University, and his next big endeavor will be publishing a collection of stories.
