Howie Good

H o w i e  G o o d

Anniversary of a Death

next

        1

Freelance pallbearers hold a festival of growing things, Aurora glory Alice. Excessive heat, a long list of desserts, anti-psychotics―the minimum requirements.

        2

Only me on the beach and empty mini-bottles of rum, the morning all to myself, a double yellow halo of sun smoke wrapped around my forehead pirate-fashion.

        3

As sometimes happens, atoms exult. I am not the typical jackknifed tractor trailer nor a fishing boat, green with white trim, on waves of gray, late-blooming blue.

        4

Eat sushi like you were going to rob a bank, ill-concealed though you are by a vase of table flowers.

Magnetic Disturbance

        1

Summer has been halted at the border before. You can find carcasses if you look in the roadside ditches.

        2

A woman appeared in the doorway clutching something pale and shriveled. This, she said, is my mother’s recipe.

        3

The dim pulse of the clock traveled up through the roots―one theory why there were no trees, only a broken white line down the center and a moonlighting cop shot in the head.

        4

Flashlights beamed through the window whenever I tried to fall back asleep. A voice like a crow’s leaked in under the door: We must carry our grief alone.