The Turning, Daniel J. Flosi

She sees him as clinging hands, groping

to be held. His eyes are frost

weeping melodies of past lovers' maladies.

Their river churns the bodies of stones.

She knew his hands

to be ripe plum flesh, once, but the valley

keeps merging at the river line.

And when he wraps his hands around her neck—

maggots from soft plum flesh;

a death stink turns the air. The turning

of children happens slowly, quiet,

like the forming of mountains.

---

Daniel J. Flosi sometimes thinks they are an apparition living in a half-acre coffin within the V of the Mississippi and Rock Rivers. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prometheus Dreaming, eris & eros, The Closed Eye Open, The Good Life Review, Zero Readers, and Wild Roof Journal. Drop a line @muckermaffic.