William Trowbridge, whose most recent poetry collection, Ship of Fool, was published earlier this year by Red Hen Press, currently teaches in the University of Nebraska low-residency MFA writing program. He is also a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Northwest Missouri State where he was co-editor of The Laurel Review, one of the Midwest's leading literary journals.
He could hear her breath faintly and feel it on his cheek as she slept: the flesh-and-coffee smell, the sweet, approachable susurrus not unlike the violent tranquility, so visceral yet so narcotic, of the morning's rain; he was drowning in flowers.
It didn't even matter; he was going to fly. He got in his car, turned on the radio to the classical music station and sped home to a bouncy symphony.
Owen turns off the TV and runs upstairs. I hear water running. I look at the ceiling. I look at my watch. I take a few more sips from my cup.
I thought maybe she was fooling, but then I tapped my finger on her collarbone and for some reason, right then, I knew something wasn’t right, so I ran and knocked on the nearest door but nobody answered.
He was looking at us both with leery-beery eyes, and then suddenly he was slinging Daisy over his shoulder and running down the length of the porch with her screaming, bellowing like a calf.
I stood frozen in the aisle when all of a sudden, a man in jeans with a gun drawn appeared in front of me and another guy, also with gun drawn, came flying over the shelf to my right, knocking canned goods and cardboard boxes all about.