NEW FEATHERS ANTHOLOGY
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Issues
  • About
  • Submit
  • New Feathers Award
  • Donate
  • Bookshop
  • Thanks
Previous
Next
Picture
Jane Ellen Glasser, Entangled
All’s Over
(Title from A. E. Houseman)
Jeffrey Dreiblatt
 

​At first I thought, well, that’s so
European, to carry a wine
bottle in your purse. Days
 
passed, I noticed her slurred 
speech. She took my dog 
to the park and returned 
 
with photos of Bess in a
stranger’s house. I started 
to question the way her trip 
 
began–a fall at the airport,
delaying her by a day. 
After a brief stay she 
 
was off again, but wanted 
to return early. I started to 
question. Her pleading call, 
 
they don’t understand 
me. I had never before 
heard her broken, sobbing.
 
Of course, come. Like 
waves on her St. Petersburg 
shore, her past crises. I
 
questioned. Did she lose 
the job or did she quit, 
moving overseas, far from 
 
anyone who knew her? Oh 
that must be so American.
Fights with landlords
 
and authorities. The waves
must have gotten too
high, even in landlocked
 
Germany. I could not
trust her alone in the
house for fear of what
 
I might or might not 
find when I got home 
from work. Now, my
 
house battered, I
spoke to her, but she
couldn’t hear. I bundled
 
my friend, wrapped her
with coats and blankets.
Pushed her out to sea.
Previous
Next
Tweet
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Issues
  • About
  • Submit
  • New Feathers Award
  • Donate
  • Bookshop
  • Thanks