I’ve been coming down
from a week long coffee high,
watching traffic through the window
of the bar, and apologising
for charging six eighty
for a double
g + t.
Tired still, ‘nother cup,
I’ll turn on the computer,
and play shoot ‘em ups
to break up the pain
of apologising for
trying to have
sex with you
again.
Leaving them was easy. There was nothing more to be done and Mary needed to be taken out of there. She was being brave, but I knew how badly it was getting to her. Everyone had been standing around in a kind of stupor, waiting for the next thing to happen. I must’ve been the only one who could think clearly. Nothing else was going to happen. So I did the right thing, and the only thing I could do, I got Mary out of there.
She reacted badly when we arrived; although, I don’t suppose there’s any other way to react to something like that. I didn’t take it well myself. The body had already turned white, and the blood really did it for me. I ran to a bin a few meters away and vomited into it. When I got back, Mary had knelt down and cradled the head in her hands. I took her by the shoulders and pulled her away. She didn’t need to see this. The blood dripping off her knees from the pool she had been kneeling in made me gag, but I held it together.
We had driven there with the others. They had crowded round the body as well, but not as close as Mary, unsure what to do I guess. Michelle was hugging Sophie, who had been there when it happened and had called the rest of us. Both were crying into each other’s shoulders. Mary was too in shock to respond to me, so I turned her around and hugged her so she couldn’t see. I held her tight and she stood against me.
Before the police arrived, Sophie tried to tell us what had happened. She still couldn’t speak very clearly through the tears. Mary had gone up to her and the rest gathered round to listen. She said someone mugging them had pulled a knife. Mary stopped her though, and they hugged. The police arrived soon after that.
I was the first to go up and talk to the police. They moved on to Sophie though, when they realised she had been there when it happened. I doubt she could have done much good, but Mary stayed with Sophie and talked to them as well. An ambulance arrived and soon more police cars. The others just stood around, scared, upset, and stunned mostly.
After they put that yellow tape up you see on TV, and asked us all more questions than I ever could have thought of, and put the body into the back of the ambulance, it calmed down. The police suggested we go home, but let us stick around and the paramedics gave us blankets. It was a really bitterly cold night.
The girls cried quietly, and the guys more or less kept quiet. I stood close to Mary. She still needed some space, she was always like that when something happened and only more so now. Still, I wasn’t going to freeze up like everyone else, doing nothing, and I stayed where I could protect her. She’d never admit it, but she needs me, and she needed me to know that, without her having to tell me. So I stayed close.
I didn’t really know her. She was one of Mary’s friends. After I got past the horror of seeing her dead, I didn’t really feel much beyond being sad that it happened and angry I hadn’t been there so I could have stopped it.
Mary kept herself busy, talking to the police and holding onto Sophie. They nodded their heads at times, like they were deciding to do something, although I suppose they were just trying to process what had happened. By this point, I knew there was nothing more to be done. I couldn’t imagine how hard this was on Mary. I needed to protect her, at least do my bit.
When I put my hand on her shoulder to take her back to the car, she looked at me, confused. I told her that I was going to take her home. Her eyes widened and I could see the exhaustion in them. I let her know in my voice that it was ok, I was taking control now; I would sort things from here.
She wanted to stay, because she felt like there was something else she could do, or should do. She began to try to explain this to me, but I cut her off, telling her I understood and that she needed to rest. She still seemed uncertain and Sophie looked at her worriedly, probably hoping she could wallow in self-pity and drag Mary down, get attention from her.
The paramedics started calling something from the ambulance. They had put the body in the back of it now. I steered Mary away from it, ignoring Sophie’s confusion and the paramedic. None of it mattered. Then, Mary told me to stop, but I kept going and she came with me.
I put her in the passenger seat and walked around the car. Sophie had gotten into the back of the ambulance and the doors were being closed. We didn’t say goodbye, and the others were giving me looks I couldn’t read. I put it out of my mind though. I just needed to protect my girl, that was all.
After a careful examination of night
She wears the full weight of sun on her shoulders
As she steps into the Eucharistic light
The morning moves and blooms and burns brilliant
Blessed by the hand of a lesser god
The pale verdant shadows of her eyes, casting crowns of green
While tincturing swells of amber bleed brightly on the horizon
And the yellow sun rises…
At first he was constantly searching for new pockets, open windows
to breathe in mouthfuls of sand and shut away from
behind-glass eyes. Once he had paused,
and stared, through either of the bulbs,
his distance from life at least an
arm thick, curvature had sent
familiar faces to the batch house.
Tasteless cheekbones falling and
stretching into quiet, hungry valleys.
The only truth was the dependable
rattle of time, pitched high
like a Chinese drum.
The exposed root
that spread fists
into fingers
and bled
from ceiling
into
a
slowly
shifting
landscape.
Some days it beat down
his back. Spread as calm as an
albatross he would allow the pressure
to trickle on top of skin and spine,
trusting the source into something real.
Other days he built castles, intricate turrets
that covered from attack, becoming vaster and
more refined as jaw-clenched skies emptied above him.
Everything fell when the process was inverted, leaving a bite
under fingernails that may or may not have been his masterpiece.
The narrow neck’s measured pour would begin again. The healthy vein
burrowing passed shins and sleep, never counting up or down but always
moving. Corseting into repetition and hoping someone was keeping track.
