| Winter pushes unto the land & a cold flame rises. A palmprint fades from the glass & the child wonders where it leaves to. A letter has just come in from the old country & everyone gathers around. Cousin Mac tells of a dream he’s been having lately in which he finds himself in a cave running his hands along the rock until he comes to a standing flame & above this flame there is always a message. It changes every night. He invites the family to contemplate these messages as if they were their own dream-circumstances. He hasn’t written in over a year. The family had been worried. He’d written the letter at a bar function with boots applauding all around before strolling with it under the soft-falling snows of Budapest wondering should he be concerned that an ocean stands between himself and those he feels closest to. Light pierced the wings of a dove ascending to flight as these remote recesses of the heart revealed themselves during the fast-rolling hours after midnight. Tearless eyes of the no-luggage vagabond, the aimless slow-roaming witness like a shark dreaming of everywhere he is not. |
Alden Wallace‘s writing has appeared in literary magazines around the world. He is the author of Endless Nights, a chapbook of poetry.
