(for my ongoing Two by Two series) DANCING ON NEW YEAR’S EVE AT DAVE AND SHEILA’S by W.S. Di Piero “Everybody’s looking for something” and everything smells good. My sweating partner’s hips push harder into mine, tequila yeasting through our skin and we’d lick each other dry, drink more, do it again while blue lampsContinue reading “Whoever Is Near”
Tag Archives: abstract
Enough of a Silence
“She slept by her son on the beach; they lay parallel to the line of water. The water lapped up in sheets over the sand and drained off. People moved, took positions nearby, walked past, and the sound of the ocean was enough of a silence so that the two slept peacefully, the lowering sunContinue reading “Enough of a Silence”
Out of the Waves
SLOW MUSIC by Tomas Tranströmer The building is closed. The sun crowds in through the windowpanes and warms up the surfaces of desks that are strong enough to take the load of human fate. We are outside today, on the long wide slope. Many have dark clothes, You can stand in the sun with yourContinue reading “Out of the Waves”
Excision
A drop of dried blood on the ground looked at the setting sun with an expression full of sadness. “Why do people look at that giant drop with happiness while they look at me with fear?” she asked in a weak voice. “We share the same roots!” A reply came to her from somewhere unknown:Continue reading “Excision”
When the Light Cools
If night is our last address, This is the place we moved from, Backs on fire, our futures hard-edged and sure to arrive. These are the towns our lives abandoned, Winds in our faces, The idea of incident like a box beside us on the Trailways seat. And where were we headed for? The countryContinue reading “When the Light Cools”
Diagnosis
The blue square of light in the window across the street never goes dark— the cathodes, the cordage, the atoms working the hem of dusk— traveling past the cranes and the docks and the soiled oyster beds, the trees loaded with radium, colors like guns, red pock-pock red and yellow up, yellow down— the blueContinue reading “Diagnosis”
Linchpin
“That’s how I’ve made it this far, triumphant. And with legs light, I tread on round stones edged by discreet grass. Perhaps the sun is too cruel for the dead who rest on the plain. I could abandon the spiral of sweet violence that wafts from these ashen castles. I could pray, make the signContinue reading “Linchpin”
To Piceous and Back
“Part of the recollection ritual was admitting defeat, recognizing that I could never remember everything. I had no choice but to remember just minuscule fragments, well aware that in no future would I be able to reconstruct the whole out of them. My dreams were but a means of forgetting, they were the branches tiedContinue reading “To Piceous and Back”
In Lieu of a Window
CORRODED METAL What I found was a flat piece of metal, corroded, pocked, and shaped quite like a cloud. I hung it over the sink in lieu of a window and looked at it. We wonder what, if anything, objects want, if only our rearranging satisfies some hidden need not only of ours but ofContinue reading “In Lieu of a Window”
Chris Bronsk 