forty invites, perfumed and polished gold

forty minutes weaving a basket of two hands

forty years of creased eyes ironing wrinkles and folds

Slips, with a cane to the floor of the old, weeping man

Tall and broad, ticking the time, he sags under his cross to bear

around the neck, clumsily, clunkily, coffin-box black

If baby powder once clowned his face and

mussed his hair

grandfather shrugged ...

“If we get caught, we tell them the truth,”

Mike grimaced, knotting his eyebrows together in an uneasy expression that chilled the air like the sour oil of tinned sardines. Dank and humid, the Arizonan air hung heavily over Mike, sagging and slobbering mounds of dizzying heat-waves into the shriveled desert pores.

Taking solace in the cool shadows of the saloon, Mike listened halfheartedly to ...

“I’m so sorry, pardon me,” Lorraine whisper-hushed a frenzied apology to scowling, shadow-cast faces while wriggling her way out of the premiere.

“You’ll have to excuse me, I need to get through,” her voice, matted thick with exaustion, was scarcely heard over the silence-slicing clang of her phone’s ringetone. It shot up into the air like a noxious gas and lingered, trailing behind her in n...