Listening

“No, no, it wasn’t always so bad,” he said.

“Only when the bedbugs caught insomnia,

holding me in a half-dream, me eating a

bucket of raw frozen fish heads – a dozen

glazed eyes sparklin’ underneath a slice of moon.

Them was the times I felt trapped behind my skull.”

​

Wrapped in smoke, his gaze falls into callused hands.

“I would try to chain-smoke the panic away

under nana’s steel wind chimes. There were dozens

hanging from them dogwoods. You would’a loved them.

I can still hear them on windy nights, all soft

under hissin’ leaves.” He looks up to the boy

​

as if wanting him to hear them too. “Now I know

it is just in my head – but ain’t everything

else!?” Tossing his eyes up to the tired stars

with a chuckle, he flicks his cigarette in

a small rippling puddle. His grandson sits still,

listening to the cigarette’s lazy hiss.

​

​

12

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