You sit down to write
and you don’t write and
that’s writing. Thirty-eight
and what have you done?
Box of an apartment.
Nice box. No visitors.
A red half-ton stops at the light.
Three big dogs in the back,
eddying around.
A couple latchkeys
halfheart chores
inside their chainlink square.
A skinny guy skateboards
through the red. Open pea coat, bare chest.
Light changes. Dogs slosh away.
You touch some words.
Avocados. Not ripe,
maybe ripe. Hard to tell.
The wind plays kitten-and-string
with the cedars.
One of the latchkeys
throws an armful of sticks
into the air. But they have forgotten
how to be branches.
–Catherine Bull
Catherine Bull’s work has appeared in Broken City, Bellingham Review, FIELD, Literary Bohemian, The Operating System and other journals. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and U.C. Davis and lives in Seattle, Washington. www.catherinebull.com
–Art: “Doorway, Rock House” Photo by Christopher Woods
Christopher Woods lives in Texas. He has published a novel, The Dream Patch, a prose collection, Under A Riverbed Sky, and a book of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. Gallery: http://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/
Copyright 2017, Catherine Bull. Copyright 2017, Christopher Woods