The Bookends Review

Eight old men are dying behind a curtain in Brendan’s hospital ward.  What they’re dying of I can’t say.  But they’re dying.  You can smell it.  Sometimes I go over and talk to them, but they never say anything back.  I go anyway, because I can’t just sit here and stare at Brendan all day.  It’s too boring.

Right now I’m on Brendan’s side of the curtain.  Like the song that says whose suicide are you on?  I’m on Brendan’s.  And he is a suicide.  Well, almost a suicide.  The doctor told us he took a very bad beating and drank a lot of Drano and that he’s going to be comatose for a while.  He doesn’t know if Brendan got beat up and then drank the Drano, or if he drank the Drano and then got beat up.  …

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The ghosts she did not know
 Tinged her days, sepia shaded longing
Sadness touching upon celebrations
 Cooling the edges, chilling
 her laughter

The ghosts she did not know
  Painted her moments, washing her walls
 Their shadowy silhouettes hanging
 Among family portraits
 Photos of before or now lined the walls, never then 

She looked into the eyes of her grandmother
Grandfather, uncle, aunts
 Days, years, months before, lightness, light
 Family she’d never meet
 Or know
 She looked at their mouths, soft
 Their hands, open
 Their bellies, full
 Her parents never spoke of what happened
 Only these three photos remained, hung
 Silent

Walking the hall she struggled to capture their voices
 Their words, alert to prick their whisperings
 She could sense their muffled background rumblings

Standing before their faces she could feel the rise
 Their anger stirring, her hatred mounting, stomach rolling
 Her family had been taken
 Ripped from all they’d known, stripped
 Down to nothing, nothing but flesh and bones
 Their bodies burned
 The dust of their debris covering everything, falling
 Still 

She moved to Papa and Mama’s portrait, young then, before
A spring dance, lace, chiffon
 Laughter filling their faces, spilling easily into gentle bodies
 Ghosts she did not know
 She smiled, a bit
 Mama’s hand gently touched Papa’s clean-shaven cheek
 Her wrist soft, clean
 Their numbers inked
 Embedded into flesh
 Stained
 Always covered now, her body shook, on guard with prickling
 Her covering would slip in moments, exposed
 Fear and shame contorting Mama’s face, always fear now
 She longed to touch their mark 

She turned to Grandmother’s portrait
She he had her Grandmother’s eyes
 Spoken, this brought stinging to Mama
 She looked deeply, her eyes
 She pressed her nose upon the glass, cold
 Dust stirred
 The barrier between then and now
 How could they share eyes
 When she’d never seen the horrors?…

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i seek shelter from the bomb
of your bloated tongue
your sneer, an angry gash
frigid words blur your lips
land like fists on mine
inkblot bruises stain my neck
i shed my dress
trembling red rose petals
limbs and skin and desperation
clinging until we are spent
i inhale the nicotine from your skin
apologies are a filtered afterthought

caught in the haze
of our better days

you peel back your spine
reveal low trees in dusky tones
i peek over your horizon
lips trail a pink sunset
an angry sliver of teeth
hovers there, bitter and
creeps between the discs
you are shocked by my
electric moonlight
as we cling beneath
sullen armchair feet
my slow hands tend your husk

we are radiance
on our better days

– Ashley Shaw…

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When Hillary left, Jenn ran through the living room to the window seat where they had read together while rubbing each other’s feet, where they’d sipped tea and dreamed of tomorrows and all the glorious days after that. She kneeled on the brocade cushion and watched as Hillary bounced down the steps from the front door to the waiting car, her hair pulled up in a high pony tail that swung from side to side as she walked. She could remember Hillary wearing her hair like that only when she washed her face before climbing into bed at night.

Then she watched as Hillary hefted the suitcase high in the air and swung it on top of the 4Runner and bungeed it in place. It was the twin to the suitcase she and Jenn had gotten the winter they took that magical cruise to Mexico.…

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He had meant to visit Rome, to feed pigeons with fresh Italian bread in the warm shadow of St. Peter’s. Over breakfast he would have swapped stories with fellow pilgrims: a young Parisian filmmaker, perhaps; a one-armed sculptor from the Bahamas; a Canadian bureaucrat who enjoyed mystical visions within the confines of his cubicle.

He had thought of learning Greek, had daydreamed about translating the New Testament into English, not for publication, but for his own intellectual and spiritual enrichment. He had meant to look up local courses that could accommodate his schedule. 

He had wanted to take up bird watching. Slight callouses would form around his eyes from the binoculars, and he would recognize other bird watchers in the grocery store, not only from their own slight callouses, but from the gentle attentiveness that would accompany their every glance.…

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I never intend to set about napping; it catches me off guard, seduces me and pulls me away from consciousness before I can scarce protest. It must be a calm day, or a day when I have too much to do, or a day when I am bored, or really any kind of day at all, because naps are devious in that way.

You never say to yourself “Wow, today would be a great day for a nap. I will go home, walk the dog, nap, prepare dinner, sort laundry, and tidy the house.” No, no. Instead what we say is “I will be productive. I will go home, walk the dog, prepare dinner, sort laundry, and tidy the house.” Of course you can insert whatever other events you would like in this scenario; perhaps you hate laundry and absolutely refuse to do it unless you are down to only one pair of clean underwear and one pair of slightly used socks.…

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There is an ebbing of spirit;
The part that marvels at a sailor’s sunset
or finds solitude in the noise that crickets make.
In the coming twilight I will perform a life sustaining
walk past rolling leas and century
old farm houses. My arms and legs will
function like the involuntary beating of a heart.
I do hope that one day soon
a resolute spirit will resurface;
one that yearns fascination, like those
that come and flutter their powdered wings
seeking but a brief respite from the darkness,
one that can laugh along with a farmer’s
children at the morning bus stop,
one that can acquiesce to the
fading light of days.

– William Greenfield…

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