Size / / /

If he wasn't waiting for someone,
then what? Then what?
What do you say to the neighbor
who swore she heard him coughing
(crying, maybe) only yesterday?
How do you explain the fact
the mail disappeared from his box
every week? Who paid his bills?

More importantly, how do you think
of him as he went? Violently,
clutching his heart, choking
tight fists of air? Or gently, by a fire,
nodding off to sleep as if he were agreeing
with the night, agreeing
with the empty room, agreeing
with whatever the awful silence
must surely have revealed.

 

Copyright © 2002 Jamie Wasserman

Reader Comments


Jamie Wasserman's poetry and fiction have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Weber Studies, Flesh and Blood, Vampire's Dan Story Emporium, Magma, Clay Palm Review, frisson, and dozens of others. His poem "Why I Believe in Ghosts" received an honorable mention from the 2002 Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. For more about him, visit his website.



Bio to come.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Lunar enby folks across here
Wednesday: The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
Load More