Megan Denese Mealor is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been featured in numerous journals, most recently The Opiate, Children Churches & Daddies, Really System, and Fowl Feathered Review. Her debut poetry collection, Bipolar Lexicon, is forthcoming in October from Unsolicited Press. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens, Megan’s main mission is to inspire others stigmatized for their mental health. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her partner, son, and two cats.

The Last Road Trip

We wheeled to Savannah
in your mutated, maladroit Mazda,
its swarthy skeleton palpitating,
drumming rigorous ramshackle limbs,
venting vapor into the voguish March violet.

My crimson cowhide valise was corrupt
with jalapeno vodka, white oak whiskey,
bourbon clarified from Kentucky chimeras.
Your risky rucksack restrained a double-braced
dog bone, copperstone lady legs,
decaying wallet of headlong wagers.

The highway was a hymnary of hickories,
cyclopean yellow slash pine pulpwood.
Contorted country carols chirruped
from the discursive dial,
commemorating chivalric caballeros,
bombastic broncobusters.

Your survey sidled over,
taking in my aloof aromatics,
the turbulence of my virginal hands
as I lowered the clammy window,
absorbing the unbound antique atlas,
pink roses scaling homespun fences,
dogwood trees baking buttery flourishes,
bawdy lemon perfume of milky magnolias.

We knew each other too well by then,
perceived every bone and knot and pearl,
had untangled tempers, tragedies, and tones.
Sluggish stars wilted in the jumbled welkin,
our world-weary rhythm a scythe on stone.

Where you drifted, I bordered.
Where you wintered, I embroidered.