"Aye, coffin nails," she says regarding the spread of used cigarettes collected on the table before her. Her dreadlocks are corralled on top of her small head with a knotted tie-dye rag. She wears a lot of tie-dye. She laughs and the tips of hair prance on her shoulders like waxen ponies. She drums her … Continue reading Blanket For A Bairn.
The panes blaze yellowblack. Orange rinds the frames. And beyond the flames faces and throats determine to drain the bar. We go in. The Fox & Hound on Pound Street is a moody boozer. Any fool can see that. It bristles. A worn welcome of cheap perfume and tobacco and beer. The smell of damp … Continue reading Coming Down The Line.
The storm abated and the congregation shuffled outside. Reverend J. Jackson, the flint of St. Hilda's at her back, was blowing great gusts of tobacco smoke into the graveyard and every blue cloud was making a miserable job of concealing her. If anything, the smoke drew attention, haloed her. She was playing the service back … Continue reading The Ever After, or Thereabouts.
When Jessica returned she had changed. Her bob had grown out and she wore it now locked. She dressed in arrangements of mismatched discard; thin slips and vest tops, secondhand summer dresses; straps striped her suntanned shoulders. Silk scarves gave chase, streamed all about her. Patchouli oiled the air around her. She had no need … Continue reading Loose Haiku.
The Russian, recently bare, but now clad only in tiny vinyl shorts and flip-flops, was telling me all about how the dog days came to be called the dog days. Apparently it had to do with the stars, or the trade winds, or something. I tried to concentrate on the words, but he tended to … Continue reading Breadknife To An Iceberg.
Looking out the no one looks in glass. Inside, warm. The music, the space - the same shape, the same mass. Everything inside, defined. Everything outside, blurred. There is motion. There is stillness. They didn't speak. They travelled west. They stayed the night at a Travel Lodge in Meredith. Dizzy and Lemons playing the machines … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [xii]
