The Visitation
I heard a massive thump. Alarmed, I went to the sliding glass door and looked out, expecting to see a seagull lying there dead after crashing into the glass. Instead, a juvenile sand shark was flailing on the back deck. I couldn’t have been more astonished if I’d been visited by an angel clothed in light or a neighbor wearing no clothes at all. The shark was just a foot long and battleship gray. As it thrashed about, I called to my wife, “Barbara, quick, bring a bucket!” I half-filled the bucket from the hose. Then Barbara, using a gardening trowel, managed to drop the shark into the bucket. This is the world. Whatever the hour, there’s always a rendezvous going on.
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Murderers on Holiday
I was born with holes in me. “These things happen,” the doctor told my mom with a resigned smile. I can’t visualize the love of our fellow man that the Bible preaches with the detail that I can baseball on the radio. If there were actually angels, would they fly in a V-formation like geese, you think? Crows can hold a grudge for a year or more against someone who has mistreated them. No one should feel particularly safe. I love cats, but even a cat, when it’s starving, could eat a person.
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Howie Good’s latest poetry collection, THE HORSES WERE BEAUTIFUL, is forthcoming from Grey Book Press.
