Two poems by Matt Galletta

The Hunted

I see blood
speckled
on the bathroom floor
and sink,

big, fat
drops of it,

as though
a crime
has been
committed here,

a grisly
murder.

As though
there’s a
battered corpse
in the bathtub,
just waiting for me
to pull back
the shower curtain
and discover it.

But the brown-black
splatter
is actually
henna
hair dye,

my wife’s
chosen weapon
in her fight against
the increasing amount
of gray
she sees
in the mirror,

a war
being waged
on my head
as well,

and I realize:

serial killer
or premature gray,

something
is hunting us
in our
own home.

************

English is useless

How are we
supposed to express
the profound,
the complex,
the revelatory,

when there’s no word
for even
the simple satisfaction
and reassurance
of two slices of
peanut butter toast
on a drunk Thursday night?