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title
Issue # 5 September 2011
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Paul-Victor Winters


 

A Last Confession

And then the sky was comet-orange, awashed
in fury. We walked outside with our pint glasses.
I followed them as they congregated, watched
them gather in the church parking lot, blinkless

and hushed, all of them. The orange sky exceeded
predictions. One of them started weeping, crushed
rosaries in her hand; she couldn't breathe.
Then, the wind, howling, blew up dust

into whirlwinds and the purls, somehow,
mollified the cries of the woman. We cared
for her. But the sky was falling. And now?
The crowd has left the church. We suck dead air.

Pilgrims make their way to the river, hopeless.
I am trying to think of something good to confess.