From today’s Daily Prompt The palm reader saw violence in me. Were it mine, done to me, or a horrible secret I carried like a gift left behind at the party, unnamed. It sits there waiting in the corner for… Read More ›
death
Touched by Mr. Bingley
The girls are at each other’s throats, so I get them outside for a walk, to the new development. The clouds are burning off, so we keep going down the dead end so I can show them a bog and… Read More ›
Saved by old times
We miss the old times because we didn’t love them enough when we could, and we know it. We love them from afar, which is easier because most things look better from a distance. Things were better then, because we… Read More ›
This life is a jacket we’ll take off soon
I pulled a Walt Whitman, tripping-out on my back in the grass, with ants crawling up my arms and neck, my ears full of birdsong and dogs barking, something flying by and stopping on my head, plastered to the earth… Read More ›
Tender flowers underfoot
Warm nights, falling asleep to the fan and the Classical music program, the loving narration of the voice in the radio. The summer’s sad decline: it comes on fast and goes out slow. You might have 20 left, more or… Read More ›
Pain killer
The psychic said I had a violent streak, and looked at me with caution, as if I had done something bad in a former life. I think she said it because I threatened to hit MJ with a hammer, but… Read More ›
Sister
He says Ginger was the same name of the dog who bit him, and gestures at scars around his mouth, on his cheek. He’s got a tattooed cross with his mom’s name, and the years she was alive, something about… Read More ›
The weight of space in the eyes
Crow wings beat hard to keep themselves up They hop, squawk, strut Never once complain. We call them death: Their eyes the color of space Cold, dark, the wisdom of the infinite confined to a frame. Maybe there’s no warmth… Read More ›
Drug Friend
Peel held his arm out to me like a piece of meat, like it wasn’t his, like it was something he found. He looked to me for a reaction at what I saw: the spots along his veins, scarred over,… Read More ›
The Waiting Room
Peel died of a heroin overdose in a cheap New York hotel, probably exactly what he wanted. I saved a letter he wrote in 1992, with his careful, shaky verse: instead of my name in the address line on the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 