NEW ::: POETRY Apr. 2015 | Page 64

",," HAPPILY EVER AFTER slipping underneath the pain of a lover's lament it gets hard out here once you realize happily ever after never existed in the first place bleeding hearts and dark souls your perfect skin in another man's hands build these walls until the sun can no longer be seen wallow in the guilt of what could have been a beautiful death one last kiss a tearful goodbye somewhere a violin begins to play J.J. CAMPBELL SPECIAL UNITED ILLUSTRATION MARY ELIZABETH PARKER BATS POISE ...for dusk to swoop, soft gray bat. A palm cupped her, scythe hand reading the shape of skull, ear, sloped arm, knotted wrist. Now the slight press of the ham of a hand turns white where a moon of perspiration marks the glass of the night table. Rain falls staccato from the balconies, stops. Returning from a place of lights or a dark room with one other body, a man jingles keys in his pocket: vanishes into his front door. Rain begins again, lopped gait like a stump-legged horse receding.