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.
Bio
Paul-Victor Winters is a writer and teacher living in southern New Jersey. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in TLR: The Literary Review, The New York Quarterly, and the Jane Street Press anthology of writing prompts, Challenges for the Delusional.