leave me and get hitched, car crash, 

your truck in the ditch, spitting out the pitch

black night, tar sticking to the tires, 

dirt in your teeth, mud and marsh melting 

in august heat—driving blind, windshield 

spit shined from the lucky suds run

after edisto sunbaked and bleached white— 

bug guts painted picasso, three busted bottles, 

skull cracked, asphalt in your throat and blood 

leaking through where your teeth touch sides— 

glass chunks like ice clinking on the street, 

red wine chalice from last night’s birthday dinner 

with the new bitch—pink lipstick 

for the last car kiss, now you’re just a carcass 

and she’s got broken knees, bikini top bow-tied 

and ringlets ripped wind-wild in the evening breeze. 

live 5 news heralds the scene while i lay the blame 

on your slick and sickening way of speech— 

only one summer’s span till you ran off 

and bought a ring, how sweet, we know where that leads,

planting seeds, seething—all of my august 

spent plotting your coffin but teenage drunks 

in lifted pickups had me beat—i know you’ve always been a liar 

but now you’re lying under white sheets. now the cop cars screech 

a doppler beat while the code blue starts to beep—

in the end all they can scrape off the street 

is a bloody ring finger and a couple of little teeth.

Eve Devera is a poet from Charleston, South Carolina. She is a 2025 recipient of the Ginny Padgett Award in Creative Writing and is published in The Petigru Review and Olive & Ash, the latter for which she currently serves as Editor-in-Chief at Charleston Southern University. In her writing, Eve enjoys crafting a delicate balance of sound and rhythm combined with vivid storytelling that takes readers right down to the particulars.