Living on Coffee and Flowers

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I wish I had the vocabulary of magnetic tape. I’d shove a pencil in my ear and then turn it counterclockwise. [End Page 67]

You make me keep my glasses clean. It helps when I can see bar stools, the teeth of tabletops, while walking backward.

I blow out the fire, chip away at oxidized beams, recycle the aluminum of my resolve to never apologize.

I’m bankrupt of promises. My body aches from manufacturing all this honesty. One day, forever won’t just be my safe word.

J. Bradley

J. Bradley is the author of Bodies Made of Smoke (Housefire). He is the Falconer of Fiction at NAP magazine and lives at iheartfailure.net.

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Prairie Schooner