Four Bottles by John Short

So suddenly she’s gone:
one more dead friend I don’t delete

from Facebook out of respect.

She changed her name

thus, Kirsten became Christina,

said there were twelve people

living inside her and

she’d grown fat from the medication.

Her daughter, a homeless punk

who befriended refugees;

her husband unhinged and violent.

She quizzed about my poetry

and if it was evolving.

Asked if four bottles of wine

a day was too much.

---

John Short lives near Ormskirk in Lancashire after years in southern Europe. He has a diploma in creative writing from Liverpool University Centre for Continuing Education and is a regular reader at Liver Bards and Dead Good Poets. His pamphlet Unknown Territory was published by Black Light Engine Room Press in 2020 and his full collection Those Ghosts appeared from Beaten Track Publishing in January 2021.

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