Humpty Dumpty

There he sits in boxers, black birds perched alongside. How to explain a husband, babbling and unbalanced, high on the garden wall? The Missus is hatching a plan to send Humpty packing. Bills litter the table; he can’t keep a job–comes home drunk and boiling. The first time Humpty scaled the wall, she ran outside in her slip to talk him down. After his fall, cops scrambled through daisies to find pieces to patch Humpty up. Back then he’d had a full head of hair. Sure, he was fragile, but she’d never noticed that crack forking between his eyes.

Elizabeth Swann earned her MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Her work has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, storySouth, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Kakalak, Iodine Poetry Journal, Main Street Rag, Southern Women’s Review, Red Clay Review, and many others.

Photo credit: Kate Farnady

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