The Poetry of Karla Huston | ||
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MORNING ZEPHYR | ||
When she tries to say a prayer,
her husband snores and her words get stuck in each gasp of please gods and thank yous, and all she can think about is pinching his lips shut so he'll quit. And she remembers how sometimes he has quit breathing, and his breath returns in a liquid gulp and she exhales, folds her hands into a thin and knotty chapel. Mouthing the words again, she thinks about the coarse mole on his cheek, how he has forgotten to make that appointment, but then a truck idles outside, and the trash man stops, sees the empty bottles and wonders who drinks all that red wine. She tries to remember a sure benediction, while the dog squeals from the bottom of the stairs, and her husband rumbles on, and she imagines the doctor now looking at her husband's cheek, his eyes glazed with disinterest until something strikes his fancy and then he shakes his head, her husband's cheek wearing a blue wound, her own nose pressed tight into a pillow when she starts to pray again. |
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Previously published in North Coast Review, The Wisconsin Academy Review and the chapbook: Flight Patterns, winner of the 2003 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest, 2003.
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