I was invited to a wedding in an abandoned storefront. A serial killer with a pleasant demeanor checked invitations at the door. "Keep moving, keep moving," the cops ordered the gawkers clogging the sidewalk. The elderly bride wore long sleeves to hide her tattoos of sunning mermaids and leaping dolphins. Still, some of the guests couldn't sleep that night for fear of drowning. Others felt more surprise than fear, like slicing your finger on a piece of broken glass. You just hold your hand above heart-level until the bleeding stops.
Overhead a small plane towed a banner that said, SMILE EMPTY SOUL ALBUM IN STORES NOW! The prettiest of the Belgian exchange students looked at me with big, empty eyes, as though she wanted to ask, "How can a mosquito fly in the rain?" but couldn't. And then the scene was like a detail from an Old Master's painting, torn and folded back and secured with a paper clip, and she was bombarded by owls and bats. I wondered what my face showed.
Howie Good's latest book of poetry collection is The Complete Absence of Twilight (MadHat Press, 2014). He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely, who does most of the real work.
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