Brian Brown Page 2
 


Summer Fiction

Your side of the bed is bathed in a soft veil of stars,
buoyed by a charm of goldfinches who ferry me
deep into the cloudless chiffon of sleep. Swoosh of the      fan.
There's a pile of your winter clothes lying on the floor
beside your favorite old chest from the farm,
a stack of Pink Floyd CDs from your darkest phase.

But there isn't one single picture of you in the room. No
graven images to feed your burgeoning God complex,
especially now that I can't touch anyone
without first touching you, can't smell anyone
without wondering why he doesn't smell like you.

And the fabulous stories all the new ones tell.
All lies, fuss and feathers, unlike our old parables,
which were instant replays of our grandmothers'
runaway mules or bloody midnight lynchings
in oaks beside the baptizing creek. Hard and true.

Our time together was like an airport paperback
we carried in a bright little tote down to the beach,
but never finished between shots of cheap tequila,
collecting numbers in the kitschy hotel bar.

It was truth laid bare, left to itself, becoming fiction.

Recent work by Brian Brown has appeared or is forthcoming in Inkwell, Quercus Review, Keyhole, Roanoke Review, and Farfelu. Visit his photo blog at http://vanishingsouthgeorgia.wordpress.com.