Doppler

Maybe I’m still in bed. Inside a dull dream. A man sits before a page. Holds a pen. Has an idea that death is a physical thing. A child growing inside him, dull and lazy. The death inside his wife is something metastasizing, a word he fails to understand, barely knows how to spell. In his father death was a sudden short of the circuitry. An electrical explosion. He tries not to imagine the deaths inside his children, but a maggot wriggles. If this is a dream, I want to wake but it won’t let me sleep. I close my eyes but cannot lie still. There is a chill. And a smell of something burning. Outside, strange flying things buzz and call. Lights flash. A siren blares, it’s tone deepening as it moves away. I recall the name for it: the Doppler effect. A sure way to know if something is coming for me or moving away. I listen hard. The man with the pen is unsure which way things are moving. Death doesn’t make even the slightest sound. Not anything either of us can hear anyway.  

What It Means To Believe

At the edge of our quiet street in twilight I watch my daughter consider the tooth fairy. We stand with a neighbor boy and his mother. He says, there’s no tooth fairy. It’s the third time he’s said it. My daughter, two years older and ten years quieter, looks down at the ground. She sees things we drop. Dimes. Barrettes. Flashes of gold. The boy’s mother argues the tooth fairy’s case. He frowns. Shakes his head. No, he says, stamps the ground. My girl stares at his foot. Almost smiles. I look up at the first star. Maybe it’s a satellite. It is too far to believe but yet I see. Wings flutter. Something darts from a tree into the fading light. The mother claps her hands. Says, time for bed. She drags him away. A spell is broken. Or restored. I look at my daughter. We shrug. We don’t know. She starts up the stairs. As I follow,  she reaches down to pick up a smooth white stone. She holds it close to her mouth, whispers something I can’t hear, and runs into the house. I ascend slowly after her, believing in everything. 

The World Ends

When the world ended I was more than a little pissed off. I hadn't been to Spain. Hadn't seen the Grand Canyon. Hadn't read the book waiting on hold for me at the library. And I was right in the middle of a phone call. A woman on the line was about to say something important. I could tell. Then the world ended. Now what? No more Spain. No canyons, grand or otherwise. No phone calls. No woman on the line. I don't even know who I am any more. So I'll call myself Billy, a name I've always liked. It's friendlier than I am. Hopeful. The world doesn't end for a guy like Billy. He's in Spain talking on his phone with a woman standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Reception is clear and perfect. She's telling him about a book she just read. It's waiting on hold for him at the library. But take your time, she says. It's not like the world's going to end any time soon. And they laugh and laugh. 

The Poet's Bowler

The poet wears baggy pants, a beard, and a damn bowler hat to the coffee shop. He carries a canvas bag stained grey with graphite. I bet he bought it like that or hired out to have it weathered. He sits beside me and draws from the bag an expensive notebook. Leather bound. Opens to pages of poetry written in large scrawl, letters two and three lines high. The poet ignores margins. I watch him write four lines. Gibberish or genius. Could go either way. He moves to sit on the floor next to a woman in an easy chair. She seems not at all bothered by his poetness. Or his bowler hat. I drink coffee, taking care not to spill on my button-down shirt, khaki slacks. So unpoetic. The poet talks to the woman about the color auburn and her painting. He has left his expensive notebook on the table next to me but taken the bowler. Were it the other way around, I’d try that hat instead of his notebook on my head. I stare at my reflection in the window, the pages of that leather journal cutting tiny slices from my ears.