by overdosing on dope
or opioids
by drinking ourselves to death
with a gun in the mouth
or to the temple
by leaping from a window
by sitting in a car in a closed
garage, motor running
by jumping in front of a moving train
by looping a rope
then stepping off a chair
by drinking pesticide
gunning the engine and driving
into a lake or river
by sticking our head inside a gas oven
speeding the car into a tree
or a concrete median
or, more slowly,
by polluting
the air, by fouling
the water, by defiling
the soil
by neglect
bit
by
bit
—
Poet Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Among the anthologies and journals in which her poetry has appeared are: Feral, The Widows’ Handbook, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Peacock Journal, Wordpeace, New Verse News, Portside, Your Daily Poem. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Best of the Net and Bettering American Poetry anthologies.
