For Freena
1.
Frank stares one-eyed down the beer’s neck: ‘Imagine, oourf, imagine you get woken’n middle of the night.’
Al, neck bent 90° back: ‘Middle of the maaawning.’
‘Shut up wog.’ Laughter behind Frank’s scorn. ‘You’re asleep’n get woken by er demon’n your chest.’
‘Hot.’ Eric leans on the table and clasps air 9cm short of the vodka. ‘You’ve, thankee James, you’ve my attention.’
‘Whichas cursed you to repeat your entire life, everything ‘cluding that moment, over and over and over, how’d you respond?’
Eric tops up a tumbler glass: ‘Izze’ demon a redhead?’
Frank tilts head right and down with annoyed smile. The sky is black-turning-blue. Three magpies begin to chorus.
James lowers his Switch and sighs through his nose: ‘It’s about time.’
Frank raises his beer in salutation, skulls it and pats his pockets.…
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August Martin’s baby momma wasn’t there.
He looked around the courtroom, the ceilings were high, the lights bring and harsh, and the thought, somewhat absurdly, that those fluorescent lights were perfecting for such a judicial setting. August took in the faces of people around him: single parents with their kids, lone adults bobbing their heads around nervously, older men and women, probably grandparents, looking stoic, or calm. He couldn’t tell. The children, he noticed, looked happy, weaving through the aisles created by the long wooden benches in the gallery. Look at them, he thought, they don’t even know.
The family court was on the third floor of the city’s courthouse. The first and second floors were reserved from criminal and traffic hearings. He’d spent too much time downstairs to ever want to be here again, but if he had to be here – and he did – he was glad to be in upstairs for once. …
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a hummingbird
sips from
our feeder before
flying away
returning
fifteen minutes
later an impatient
diner
she glides
tilts
finds a red
lobelia and
goes there
silently
– Kenneth Pobo…
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We’re halfway through the set and my hand is on fire. My white guitar is smeared red with blood. The walls are sweating and the crowd in front of us seems endless. It isn’t, I can see the back staircase, but in my mind we’re at the start of something real here.
I finish my solo at the end of the song and step up to the mic. “I know Georgie said he was inviting everyone he knew, but I didn’t think he had this many friends!”
A soft laughter comes from the crowd and Georgie taps the drums behind me in response.…
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Luke squinted into the darkness and identified his old friend, Orion. There was the hunter’s belt, his broad shoulders, his knees. There were his club and shield, though to Luke, the armaments appeared more like a bow just after release. As his eyes repeatedly traced the points of light—what the ancients believed were pinholes in the firmament—he saw more details: Orion’s matted hair; the sinews of his taut, lean arms; the creases and furs of his pelt; his cruel, heartbroken eyes, as clear and sharp as glass. Luke could see his life, too: Orion the bastard prince, who walked across the Aegean Sea; Orion the libidinous drunk, who raped Princess Merope; Orion the blind, his eyes gouged out by Merope’s father.
Reflexively, Luke turned, trying to find Perseus, but of course, Orion followed him.…
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Landscapers remove
weedy bushes
in smoke
from distant fires.
A dead-looking sky
inert in a cloud coffin.
Saws blare. Branches
heap up.
The crew leaves us
with more light
that I stand in,
briefly, before
returning to
our closed-up house.
– Kenneth Pobo…
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Home reeks of lime
and mildew. We hoist
a box spring through the second-
floor window—
dirt beneath creme brulee nails,
tip-toeing around next door’s
double panes, the clatter
of a dead woman’s rose-colored
dresser drawers echoes
in the afternoon.
– Rebecca Ferlotti
Note: This piece was originally published in Mock Orange Magazine (2013, now defunct)…
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