it’s not surprise

that induces the nausea, more like that re-
turning feeling, how

the stomach
climbs, not bile but

the organ itself inching up-
wards, towards a gasping to

gulp air not yet fetid
with the known. I follow a woman

whose doting husband drugged her
nearly to death

not one but many times. The rest
I don’t need to even say.

That’s the fucking rub, isn’t it?
It’s all of it, shit – Why

take on one more morsel?
If I could reverse

peristalsis, I’d have evening grow
sharper as it afternoons, have each guilty

party de-decide. the crime, the
playlist. Brock’s

father’s argument was he didn’t
have to. No, he

wanted to. I churn
at that. Heave.