A Pointed Steaking of a Girl

with waves of hair and blaring

eyes tries on

an embroidered blouse,

her boyfriend permitted to

peak through the curtain,

give an honest but gentle opinion,

the girl guides his answers with forceful questions,

his answers give way to her

prompts.

~

sweet-coconutty-teenage-girl-stink

Arcade

I wanted the old men who ran the arcade to be heartwarming gentlemen. I wanted them to be ambassadors of another, better time. I waited for them to greet me gracefully in the morning, to tip their hats and nod their heads to me in the evening, to follow these actions with an elegantly deferential word, a salute to the old-world duty of gallant man to eminent woman. In three years of coexisting in that arcade, three years of hopefully entering and exiting that building, expectant smile on, head ready to nod warmly in response to a sweet phrase, a charming word, a kind smile, I never received so much as a glance from the old men who ran the arcade.

Extract

How quickly our everyday realms sink into the mythic quicksand of memory. We are here. We were there. How quickly the forms of our ordinary mornings shift into twilight apparitions, pointing to the dark pool of night, signalling the gentle onset of death. Slowly, wittingly or not, we are undergoing a subtle drowning, a silent sinking into oblivion.

I would like to write a story for you.

We have shared so many stories, but like our time together, they have passed into the dream realm. I recall parts of them, though all recollections are dusted with a golden, obscuring vapour. I remember when you told me about your mother and your sisters. As you spoke, the tragedy seemed to unfold from the sky. The shop became a holy bowl of light, overwhelming as music, fragile as a soap bubble. You grew. Your brown eyes glowed like back-lit amber, your hair streamed in godlike coils of ancient rope. You spoke death with the assuring breath of an archangel, sword flaming against the dark. I truly loved you that day. You reminded me that only people matter. You reminded me to live with love.

Something to Aim For

I drink black coffee and I've
shaved my head.

I don't have sugar and I
talk about the dead just as plainly as I talk about
the living.

I'm done with giving everything
a coat of veneer.

I am now plain.
I am now clear.

Peter

Beard and bone

cut like a knife

sculpted in stone

carrying life like a baby bird.

The face of good

shaped by pain

draws his ink

from the human stain.

Karina

The woman, wan
and waxy as a white
candle

bears her morning body
through the wooden
rooms

Binding the blinds
with rope

Winding the windows
open