Ron Scully
Ahead of Time
The letter carrier arrives at his 4 o'clock drop.
He pulls off road in his blue and white Tonka truck,
putts around back of the Truro graveyard and parks.
Under the speckled shade of a scratchy beechnut,
he mumbles down his homemade p.b.j.,
head nodding over the scream sheet, "His Ship" trifecta.
No mail today, for the lonely dead. He checked.
No forwarding addresses. The headstones sanded
by the whirl of white sands, bleached by salted light,
seagulls squawking over the lost, the whitecaps clap,
the numbing shores murmur the rosary, over and over.
The sleepy sun retiring into the Buzzard's Bay bath.
On the front seat sits a bell jar of her ashes. Someday
he'll fertilize the fishbones, the hadal shadows. Not today.
Bio
Ron Scully is a very retired bookseller. After half a lifetime on the road, an authentic Willy Loman only funnier, he has settled in the Pacific Northwest to read and write. He practices haikai daily and has published widely in short form journals. To date he has published 7 chapbooks, the latest of which is The Roundhouse Clock published by Yavanika Press. Occasionally he publishes a lyric piece, but only when given. Currently he is working on a play. Otherwise, he has grandkids to keep the neurons firing.