Happy ending

I  told  the  police  I  tried  to  save  him.  I  said  to  them  I  grabbed  his  legs,  but  he  was  already  dead,  or  so  it  seemed.  They  asked  me  a  lot  of  things,  and  I  can  understand  that  it  may  seem  a  surprisingly  weird  coincidence  that  the  man  who  found  the  hanging  body  is  the  one  who  hates  him  the  most.  Did  I  hate  him?  I  didn’t  deny  I  wanted  him  suffering.  I  told  them  that  his  death  is  nothing  but  a  relief  to  me;  still,  I  tried  to  save  him,  because  when  you  find  someone  committing  suicide,  you  immediately  try  to  help  him.  Also,  I’m  not  good  at  acting.

Elvira  was  the  first  to  arrive.  When  they  told  her  what  happened,  she  was  petrified.  They  said  we  both  were  shocked,  and  maybe  it’s  true.  Elvira  is  a  nurse,  and  that  night  she  was  at  the  hospital.  She  said,  don’t  worry,  we’ll  be  okay.  The  cop  asked  if  I  wanted  psychological  assistance,  but  I  said  I  was  okay.  They  told  me  about  the  analysis  and  the  questions.  Elvira  nodded  and  gave  them  her  cell  number,  just  in  case. 

I  clearly  remember  the  weight  of  that  body,  a  human  body  softly  swinging  from  the  ceiling.  I  tried  to  revive  the  scene  many  times,  while  Elvira  was  listening  to  me  and  holding  my  hand  gently.  She  said  it  was  the  best  thing  to  do,  to  summon  every  detail,  such  as  the  creaky  door,  the  guttural  noises,  the  thud  of  the  body  hitting  the  floor.  She  said  that,  if  I  was  too  anxious,  I  could  have  some  pills,  since  she’s  a  nurse  and  knows  how  to  get  the  right  ones  to  make  me  feel  better.  I  felt  hurt,  and  I  said  that  I  was  okay. 

She  smiled  at  me:  I  knew  you  were  strong  enough. 

I  don’t  blame  her  for  Giorgio.  The  affair  is  now  part  of  a  forgotten  life:  I  recognize  I  was  horrible,  and  even  if  I  didn’t  cheat,  I  treated  her  in  a  way  that  made  her  forced  to  cheat.  They  were  both  drunk  and  unhappy,  it  just  happened—troubling  times,  the  ones  that  made  them  live  together  in  his  beautiful  house.

Are  you  okay?

I  told  her  I  was  okay,  she  smiled.  That  night,  we  went  to  a  restaurant,  and  she  proposed  a  toast  to  our  new  life.  We  had  sex.  The  next  day  I  felt  nervous.  She  was  hysterically  cleaning  the  house.  We  argued.  Then  she  asked  me  if  I  needed  help  to  review  my  story  for  the  police.  I  told  her  I  didn’t. 

At  the  police  station,  I  told  the  cop  I  knew  everything.  They  had  been  lovers.  Marriage  is  a  hard  job.

The  cop  didn’t  seem  doubtful. 

When  I  came  back  home,  Elvira  was  worried.  It  was  all  okay,  I  said,  I  didn’t  even  forget  the  swollen  face  and  the  livid  lips.  She  hugged  me.  Everything  was  okay.  She  said  if  I  had  any  doubt,  I  could  have  the  pills.  I  think  I  may  accept. 

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Michelangelo Franchini is an Italian author, founder of the artistic collective Yawp. His stories and essays have been published by many Italian literary magazines, such as: Tuffi Rivista, Frammenti Rivista, Pastrengo Rivista, Reader for Blind, Altri Animali, Carmilla, Verde Rivista. He has a bachelor degree in literature.

Downpour
 
 
Eerie, the sound honesty makes: three syllables
trickling through lips in a room assumed to be safe & dry.
 
The weatherman said, you stayed for walls only
I could afford. A rancher redone, interrupting ruin,
 
where summers invited wounds to walk in fragrant
gowns of grace- Sweet Alyssum, Honeysuckle. It takes
 
what it takes to translate the bruise into something aromatic,
while watching the sky force the ground to drink the tears of Christ.
 
Eerie, to be a chalice of clouds above the Lake of Fire, a gray
goblet filled with relief hands refused to pour.
 

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Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems are forthcoming in Nebo Literary Journal, Main Street Rag Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, Lullwater Review, Flint Hills Review, El Portal, Emrys Journal, The Meadow, and West Trade Review. He is the author of Boys (Duck Lake Books) and Waxing the Dents (Brick Road Poetry Press).

Little Richard in a Red Suit 
Getting into a Red Cadillac Convertible
 
It’s sometime in the 1980s in New York City.
David Bowie brings a photograph of Little Richard
 
into the studio. Shows it to his collaborator, Nile Rodgers.
Says, Nile, darling, that’s what I want my album to sound like.
 
Rodgers parks his Fender Stratocaster so he can Scotch-tape it—
the photo of Richard Wayne Penniman in a red suit getting into
 
a red Cadillac convertible—to the hexagonal piece of Plexiglas
above the recording console: a black man with Jeri curled hair
 
and loads of Attitude, enough to get him lynched in the South
in the 1950s. And though there are no words for what it says,
 
the photo with the deckled edge, we glimpse Little Richard
and the sum total of his fame thus far. The lack of a smile 

I might translate as: the world adores you until it doesn’t.
David Bowie adores him. And knows tutti frutti means
 
“all fruits” in Italian, that A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-
wop-bam-boom is untranslatable: a drum-beat rhythm
 
the Architect of Rock 'n' Roll claims to have dreamed
then risen from deep sleep to repeat like a shibboleth
 
or clandestine chord to be performed to gain entry
into whatever ungated heaven is left him, left us.



Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
 
Lucinda Williams’ song unfolds in a mythic South,
her telling kids, whether real or imagined, to pick up
after she goes. Hence, the car wheels on a gravel road.
 
I hate to say it, but the wheel is what we put a Michelin
or Goodyear or Firestone or Pirelli onto: it’s the mount.
That aside, the singer is telling kids to do something.
 
Her intention to love them and be someone they trust,
but Creation is restless. Part of her wishes to be gone,
on the road. She fantasizes summertime in the South,
 
though she knows the godawful history like it’s hers.
In the song, either side of this metaphorical roadway,
there are July-ripe cotton fields for mile upon mile.
 
Louisiana is a big Crayola box of coloration. And
what better metaphor for the human condition than
the Crayola box with the built-in sharpener: wanting
 
all the colors. If there is a gladiator, you need blood
red as daybreak over open country. Gladiatorial gore
that cottons the floor of the Colosseum. The world
 
being what it is, the imaginary champion is awaiting
wound-stitching and a bed of straw. Maybe a woman
when strong again—if she’s called in from the fields,
 
she carries the rage of leaf-fall: the scents of the world
and lovers falling back after lovemaking, looking up
to watch the so-called wheel of night-sky stars turn.
 

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Roy Bentley, a finalist for the Miller Williams prize for Walking with Eve in the Loved City, has published eight books, including American Loneliness from Lost Horse Press, who is bringing out a new & selected. He is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Rattle, The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, and Shenandoah among others. Hillbilly Guilt, his latest, won the Hidden River Arts / Willow Run Poetry Book Award and awaits publication.