Steve Tills

From Life Sentences

Natural patterns-protrusions from drip stucco-style ceiling paint form
forest of tree barks, twisted visages, and whale bellies striations. Hum
of bathroom fan remarks quiet it interrupts, man wishing it were context,
not figure. Car’s whir heard inside back right side bedroom window
bounced off left side wall of neighbors’ adjacent house from the main street
in front of dwellings. Rat-a-tat-tat of trash can apparatus scraping against
blacktop driveway surface reverberating in night air itself not cause of sounds.
More or less real words underscoring increasingly savored escapes to realities
succoring lonely man in need of less surreal life. Man lending an ear
to woman complaining that he doesn’t hear her, woman listening to herself
unable to believe her ears. Odd corner of the room in the corner of apartment
one of six concave and one convex 90 degrees. Woman looking into mirror
to change the appearance of what she sees there. Man changing his mind
about what he wants to write in order to think differently feels same. Man
believing thinking and feeling sometimes two different processes. Disenchanted
man believing most poetry enchanting language to provoke enchanting thought
evokes detached feelings as he reflects on utility of language for resolving
emotional issues by nature essentially nonverbal. Tear drops shaped wooden
dowel at bottom end of metal bead pull cord hanging from ceiling lamp fixture
appears to jiggle man notices unable to determine whether it’s moving or still.
Upstairs toilet leaking to downstairs bathroom again explains how man managed
to pee on the toilet seat wet when wife sitting on it a second time discovers
the thing really was up when her husband last pissed. Rain more than mist
droplets falling at equal velocity but uneven rate heard as gentle and soft. Man
ironically availing himself of another’s every daily travail eventually can’t tell
trivial from trite. Man and woman hearing thump and plop, not thud, describes sound
made by the soft leather fold of flaps flopping of table corners thick old leather
prescribes agreement about linguistic distinctions neither avant-garde nor abnormal.
Young man lifelong vexed by frustrating dyslexia reads customers expertly as clerk
at Electronic Communications store. Pitter-patter a matter of H2O drops splitting
into splinters from tiny crashes into patio floor just outside back door. Talk of
quitting cigarettes separates man and woman smoking on back porch, the latter
deathly afraid they won’t have anything else to do together. Eight by five inch
Ampad notebook used to draw line in the sand under letters S, O, and S.  Woman
in dream never seen in person by man waking from it except possibly in
previous dreams leaves voluminous note slash love letter explaining that her
two young children are well and they all love him would he please call about the
sublet they are renting out to a third party, man takes strange tryst seriously
gratefully acknowledging to himself that it sustains him through daily events
dolefully devoid of such mysterious extra-marital dalliances.

theenkBooks@rochester.rr.com

***

***