John, thinking about his wife – Fathers and Sons

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

I don’t even need to really get Judy on board, I know she’s just bored. With this episode in our lives, and everything. I can barely pick up on her little voice out in the hallway so sweetly chastising those children back to bed. Lord knows if it was the ringleader, or all of them, in cahoots again. God those are scary times. They put the boy out on a mattress they found by Lake Murray. I caught them riding an exposed septic field on the upturned roof of the dog house. And the oldest boy and the middle girl set the back wood on fire and denied it even to the faces of the firemen. Confessed in just disgusting, snotty tears that night. It was awful. All the worst definitions of pathetic. Judy has the patience of a person who grew up a smart mean child. The really alluring way a witch woos a princess. A worm doesn’t stop being a worm just because there’s a fishhook in her.

Too many beers in one night.

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

White, with lavender veins.
These words have never been read together before.
That’s just the way words work. Ones and zeroes
and binary languages inspired by binary species.

Too many beers in one nights.
Too much green for one leaf.

Airport security scares me.
So do toddlers who glare at me.
Asking questions in their eyes.
Country roads. Take me home.

Pink. All pink. To the brink. A few weeks before blueberries,
there were pink flowers on shooting star whips
in taupe branches no one notices. Who is not looking.
Metal detector beeping out in the night.
Echolocations stacked. Like layers of sound.

Or a new swimming pool in the backyard.
And a reaffirmed friendship.

Discovered within undeniable benefit.
And yet. Some form of yet. Of future tense.
Some credit we borrowed from tomorrow so no matter what,
today, we stay friends. Orange.

Red orange burnt brown yellow petals.
Bent black on the ends.