I put my worry on a boat.
Left it in the Atlantic
Night after
as I sat crying on the pier
it came floating back
Drilled a hole in it
shoved it into the stream.
Haven’t seen it since.
I know it’s still out there
A ton of my worry.
David Derey wrote this poem.
I found him in the garden, grinning like a great white shark.
“Everything okay, Gramps?”
“NASA says a skyscraper-sized asteroid will hit this city.”
“Their calculations were wrong.”
“What?”
“They say it’s going to splash into the Pacific.”
The shark grin submerged, leaving only his usual flat face.
And quietness.
David Derey wrote this story.
We sat by dad’s deathbed, my sisters and I. He opened his eyes and stared at us with urgency.
“You only ever got to know my shell,” he said. “Quick; I gotta show you!”
Curious, we all leaned forward on our chairs and waited.
But he never said anything more.
David Derey wrote this story.
“Whipped!” we used to shout, mocking him, all those times he couldn’t join on bar nights.
When he could, she’d always call him home early.
Those phone calls cracked us up. We made women’s voices, and passionately screamed his name while he shushed us.
“Hanged,” police told us one day.
David Derey wrote this story.