The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The High Cost of Wanderlust
by Angela Yuriko Smith
My sinking ship slips into sunset waters
as my daughters and sons snuggle in beds
not knowing they are my final breath away
from being all alone in this world.
Orphans, children in mourning
by tomorrow morning when the news
slips down the just-awake streets
the freaks and a few drunks still stumbling
and bumbling past the messenger
the professional bringer of bad news
refusing to spare a dime, a smile, the time
and my progenity now penniless
paying the cost of my wanderlust
my ill-placed trust that placed
me on a ship full of false promises
lost causes and leaks.
Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.
More from Angela Yuriko Smith:
Angela Yuriko Smith is an American poet, author and co-publisher of Space and Time magazine, a publication that has been printing speculative fiction, art and poetry since 1966. Together we build a poem as a community each month. Visit “Exquisite Corpse” at SpaceandTime.net to submit.
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Wise and spot on, a worthy poem, Angela! I’m sure some readers will identify!
Great poem – it has a beautiful rhythm and flow, as natural as the tide, which carries the ship and its captain irrevocably to their doom.
An excellent, poignant poem.