Here's a poem I wrote with Miss Erin Dillon.
plucking away
"Damn, is this really all I'm left with?" Agnes was staring at the remaining white hairs planted on top of her head. She panned down to study her well nourished, but wrinkly face in the mirror.
"Perhaps I'll try that new can opener Gladys gave me tonight." Agnes frequently caught herself involuntarily speaking aloud. Most of these geriatric blurts were bland observations or rhetorical questions she could not begin to answer. Her sanity teetered above a beautiful landscape; tilting left... then right... back left... all while maintaining a serene, steady smirk. The beast of solitude who once haunted her dreams oddly fled for the mountains when faced with the actual handshake. She believed it was God granting her a holy badge of courage. An explanation was never given but Agnes no longer feared the unpredictable sound of silence.
Years ago, probably six or seven, Agnes owned a beagle who escaped through a hole in the backyard fence. A search ensued but the dog was nowhere to be found. After nine days had passed the little boy who lived across the street admitted he had been hiding the dog under his bed. He maintained his innocent and naive aura with brilliance... until his mother heard a stifled bark seep from the crevice below the child's bedroom door. The gig was up.
The boy confessed wearing a face wet with tears. Agnes sighed with conflicting emotions and handed the leash to the boy too stunned initially react. She knew it was the only conclusion that rang pure truth, and she sought nothing more passionately.
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