Sara shed no tears<\/p>\n
as she stepped around the body<\/p>\n
slumped in the rolling chair<\/p>\n
to pull the knife buried deep<\/p>\n
out of the head<\/p>\n
and rinse it in water so hot<\/p>\n
it dropped<\/p>\n
from her hands<\/p>\n
before scrubbing vigorously<\/p>\n
with a heavy-duty scrubbing sponge<\/p>\n
before putting it in the dishwasher<\/p>\n
along with the breakfast dishes<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
before she rolled the chair to the car<\/p>\n
and drove it to the drop off<\/p>\n
to push it over the cliff<\/p>\n
and watch it burn<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
before she biked home<\/p>\n
to bleach the blood from the floor<\/p>\n
and scrub at the stains with a strong brush<\/p>\n
and rinse with boiling water<\/p>\n
and dry with old rags<\/p>\n
before taking the rags<\/p>\n
to the neighbors\u2019 trash can<\/p>\n
that would be picked up<\/p>\n
at 7 am tomorrow<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
before she thanked God<\/p>\n
the floor was white linoleum<\/p>\n
and not tile with cracks<\/p>\n
where \u2013 something \u2013<\/p>\n
might fall in<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
as she huddled on the sofa<\/p>\n
holding her 10-year-old<\/p>\n
who had learned long ago<\/p>\n
to fear the fall of his own tears<\/p>\n
who whispered, \u201cSorry, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
as they waited for the sunrise<\/p>\n
before calling Missing Persons<\/p>\n
Sara shed her tears<\/p>\n
for him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sara shed no tears as she stepped around the body slumped in the rolling chair to pull the knife buried deep out of the head and rinse it in water so hot it dropped from her hands before scrubbing vigorously with a heavy-duty scrubbing sponge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5783],"class_list":["post-131012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-marathon2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145393,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131012\/revisions\/145393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}