St Augustine’s
marked cards and letters filled the top drawer of the old writing desk — two long years of them, correspondence and poems and notes of love and want, all folded away in the quiet dark. he remembered the gate to her front door, the narrow path through the garden where lavender and rosemary and basil
The Reunion
forty years on, and still I have my small spoon and small chipped cup from Trinity College, Cambridge — sacred little relics, warm in my hands like talismans from another life. last night the reunion surged through me: red wine dark and heavy, escargots glistening in garlic butter, and a rich bloody fillet of lamb.
The Copper Grill
credit crunch, banks collapse. the headline bleeds out in a grubby newspaper spread across a sticky table. the ink fused with smears of butter from oily ketchup fingers. coffee stains the edges. chunks ripped from the classifieds, page thirty-three. used cars. escort services. mugs of tea steam under the light. hand-rolled cigarettes glow between stained
Neptune’s Crown
my daughter pointed at it through the green murk and said, “Look, Daddy, Neptune’s crown.” it was just a goddamn hubcap off a Ford Mondeo, once chrome-bright and spinning proud on some salesman’s ride, half-shiny even when the rest of the car was coughing rust. one day the clips gave up — like everything else