Cortez

Cortez

by Tim Reed

red on black

red on blue

dense

smoke pluming

salt

water hissing

leaving no recourse

but Progress

Trust, Trust

Trust, Trust

by Tim Reed

Trust, Trust

it's all I hear

but your hands

are beat bloody

with backup plans

I rather think the earth

rests on turtle-back

Sand-Crab and Scarab

Sand-Crab and Scarab

By Tim Reed

    It was at an antiques store. Or at least I think it was. Some squat building along the Oregon coast hiding between two taller nondescript stores, like a sand crab hiding from a gull. I move about, beneath brown-shell ceiling, sorting through some scattered bones of some forgotten past. There’s a stale smell in this mausoleum, as though these objects are being held in a vat of ether. Coke bottles, gilt porcelain, and flowered postcards seem naked and exhumed under the pale sea-green fluorescent bars. I am both repulsed and seduced by theses shelves, racks, and buckets of kitsch – like a child staring at the blackened flesh of a mummy. I too, stare at that necrotic form, waiting to see if those lids will open. But of course, they’re only antiques. Only antiques.

     Absentmindedly, I flipped through a long wooden tray of old medicine posters and Norman Rockwell Americana. Some cheap stereo obscured by jumbled booths plays some cheap radio station filled with noisy ads and the routine, four-chord anthems. I shifted my weight and stifled a yawn. Some glitter of blue glass caught my eye, and I glanced up. As I broke my vigil, the mummy’s lids grated open. Then, he caught me in his gaze – locked and immobile as stone. Black, hatched lines on a humble lithograph reflected my soul-face. On a barren field, there I was with knee bent. In my arms, the most sacred weight. I try, but I can’t see my face – it’s turned away, riveted upon hers. Two or three feet away, I see the strange fruit of my labor. Six feet by four feet by six feet, the ground has opened its mouth in a yawn. But the somnolent dirt is patient and no stranger to grief. Her face is young, but frightfully pale. How, I do not know, for there isn’t a scrap of color to be seen on that page. But I know her, and her loss is almost too much to bear. The lids close, and suddenly I am back under that irreverent paneled ceiling.

     I can see the sandy brown hair of my sister over the top of the next booth. She rounds the corner. “There you are.” she says “I wondered where you’d gone off to. Have you seen the old records they have over in the corner?” I look up at her. “I think, Meg,” I shift my weight and struggle to compose my thoughts in a way that doesn’t sound absurd. “I think, Meg, that my life will be marked by some great tragedy.” I can tell she doesn’t quite know how to respond. I don’t know how to respond. I can tell she thinks it’s absurd. And it is. How could one lithograph in one squat crab-store in one beach hovel town signify any more than another grey day on the Oregon coast? But my ears are tuned to the unexceptional presage, the significance in the ordinary.

    Together, we laugh it off and make our purchases. My sister, with some tasteful sundries, of course. They’re gifts for family and friends. The holidays are still three months away, but she’s always frightfully efficient. I walk up to the counter with my scarab from this pharaoh’s tomb, cleverly disguised as a two dollar-fifty lithograph. Outside, the sun has set and far out in the onyx night I can hear the disconsolate waves rising and falling like buildings, men, and civilizations. A soft, cold rain dabs the dirt-stained streets like a mother cleaning the face of her child. But she can’t remove the crab from the sand or the scarab from my hand. She can’t remove that prophecy that my heart clings to with white knuckles. “I’ll need this later.” I say to myself. Where did I learn my future? It was an antiques store. Or at least I think it was. But it was more.

Spirit

Spirit

by Tim Reed

it is windy today
and

outside the

rocking chair sways

in clumsy imitation

of departed friend

but it is only the wind

1958 - 2016

1958 - 2016

by Tim Reed

craven
I stand at this wall
they say within your bones
 lay sleeping, still
but how could I know
when I did not see
inglorious crew
slide bone-box within?
all I can know is

this marble mirror will

reflect any face
but the one I wish

Photo by Veronika Balasyuk on Unsplash