Jeffrey Winke: A DOE-EYED AH-HA HEAD NOD

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It’s a modest lilac-blue spiral tattooed on her smooth upper inner thigh. A symbol of possession. A chattel mark acquired a few wild years ago — “voluntarily,” she adds with moisture-kissed lips and a doe-eyed ah-ha head nod. The details of that rural upstate period are milky-white foggy at best. She reaches for a seagull-beige, handle-less pottery teacup and delicately sips from the steaming souchong. “There were things I did … unselfish acts of passion ...” Her yearning dark brown eyes, framed by tussles of walnut color shoulder-length hair, scan her cozy efficiency in the red-brick downtown boarding house and light on a full-size framed map of El Salvador. She has fond Salvadorian memories of volcanic-black sand and the heat it holds into the deep night. She stretches into a soft leather jacket, grabs a thick, cheetah-print folder and leaves but a hint of her cheeks on the seat cushion. The door clicks shut behind her.

listening. . .
thunder fades
into itself
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by Jeffrey Winke
Milwaukee, Wisconsin