He appeared scrupulously unsuperstitious, but the smell exposed him, acrid, brain-curling. I startled him in the bathroom.
Grandpa dropped the burning envelope into the toilet. “Sssh. Tell nobody. The witch will know.”
After he died, I continued the family tradition, as my grandchild will. Burn all clippings, hair to toenails.
photo by chuttersnap at unsplash
He was scrupulously unsuperstitious, but the smell gave him away, acrid brain curling reek.
I followed him to the bathroom. Startled, Grandpa dropped burning paper into the toilet.
“Ssh. Tell no one. The witch will know.”
After he died, I continued his tradition.
Burn all clippings, hair to toe nails.
Becky Kjelstrom
The dream began as a once-a-nighter, but soon recurred many times night and day. Dreams of holes, large, small, deep, shallow, growing, shrinking. Waking in a cold sweat, skin burning through a thousand itchy pores. Holes consuming organs, bones and blood till nothing remained but endless dark of the universe.
October deluge
Parka obscured costumes
Trick or treat, Portland
without or within
good or bad hidden from sight
and insight, monsters
Sugar skulls flowers
Celebrate both life and death
An ancestral chain
