Between the Walls
That there’s lightning is a guess he’s only too willing
to hazard; thunder shakes the windows
almost as often as raindrops moisten them, but exterior light
doesn’t come here, not even in slivers. The centipedes
won’t hear of it. A plate of eggs will have to do, and some
toast of course, and one of the fuzzy channels the TV’s
been receiving lately. He has it pretty good, he’d say,
though the work hasn’t been enough. There’s three pills left,
but he’s been in the pink recently and figures
he’ll just quit taking them, skip the refill, cling
to the hope that things will pick up, i.e., with work,
say, and the doctor, and the rain will stop eventually, and
the centipedes will, instead of drying out between the walls,
die and fade away or turn into silvery flakes of money.
—PAUL VERMEERSCH
(Originally published summer, 2003.)
