Tonight's Poet Corner: I Lost Everything

I Lost Everything
by Belinda Roddie

The house, the car, even the cat.
She took it all, and she dragged the kids,
bawling with reddened eyes, out to the curb
where our idling auto awaited.
Five minutes to say goodbye to me before
it was all over.

I stood paralyzed in the doorway
of my new ramshackle apartment, unable
to speak, clusters of soup cans
locked against my armpits because
I had been preparing dinner.

They had called me everything in the book
while I was on the stand: A drunk, an abuser,
a good-for-nothing negligent low-life.
To any audience, I was not willing to tell
the truth. I was only focused on the

depleting temperatures outside, and the frost
kicking me in the chin before I closed the door,
and the sane, stable beeping of my phone
as a text from my friend asked,
"Want me to get a six-pack at the store?"