I hold this in my cupped hands,
Stare into its depths.
Red and orange flicker, leap and stab.
Smoky, shifting colors blacken and curl
Its abundant petals. Continue reading
hope
Before The Gold Rush
We’d started loading at the dawning of the third moon. Triage overflowed after the fifth wave from the Kipstanian Crisis. We tried to get the word out to all survivors; transport off our doomed planet ended today. Continue reading
I Threw a Shoe
She sits on the highway’s gravel shoulder, rubbing her sore, unshod feet. The sun presses hard on her head and shoulders. Continue reading
His Secret, and Hers
His long spatulate fingers, joints knobby as cherry pits, cup a bouquet of fresh dwarf roses. He shifts from foot to foot within the grove of birch trees, anxious over his late arrival at the graveyard. Continue reading
Jack the Ripper Spins
There’d be no dancing in the pub that night. Air quality alerts had been on “Severe” for the past three months, and the popular Sorrowing Gnome, with its airtight construction, was filled with exhausted workers. Pub owner Tommy Finn leaned an elbow against the bar and stared at the TV above.
Spring’s Assurance
Spring is late, delayed by a blizzard that left two feet of soggy snow, making my front stair’s existence a Schrödinger’s cat. When late April sun emerged, so did we.
Moonlit Balloons
High on the hill, strands of moon drift, catching on the branch-ends of the Prairie Honey Tree. Barren of leaves, she bows under the fullness of her particular progeny, Continue reading
