Jeffrey Winke: IN A SLURRED-WORD STATE

Deep evening. I pretend it’s the wind flowing through the shed’s saw-tooth roof rather than her raspy voice. She’s nagging. This time for him to drive the half-dozen blocks to buy a pack of Chesterfields from the Shell station. She smoked the last one while frying up the pork chops and onions that they ate with enough beer to keep them in a slurred-word state. The brandy bottle’s seal is broken. The night will eventually end when they both pass out or exhaust themselves from the yelling and him sobbing “why did you have to do it with him—with all the men out there—why with him?”

same high ledge
same nightmare depth
same fall

by Jeffrey Winke
Milwaukee, Wisconsin