Grandmother says
they used to bury them.
Whole gardens of them, marked with stones,
pretty trees trimmed into shapes
and little pots for flowers. (more…)

Against a barricade of damp sand
in sacks, we’ve been waiting,
ears tuned to the shuffle of soles. (more…)

THE MAN IN THE SUIT AND TIE slashed his wife’s throat. But no blood squirted from the wound he had made on her grayish, beige neck. Nor did that stop her progression towards him. He stumbled back into the china cabinet, some of the dishes inside falling, breaking. He ran around the kitchen table with the butcher knife still clutched in his hand. She shuffled slowly ( But not slowly enough for his tastes.) after him as he tipped the proud wooden chairs from the dinette set onto her path. When this did not impede her route he used the knife again: Stabbing at the spot where he thought her heart might be. The blade ran clear through with an apple slicing sound, but again, this seemed to have no effect on her at all. The weapon stayed lodged in her chest as he caught her off balance and pushed her to the floor. (more…)

Trapped
I am alive inside
This Hell on earth
For how much longer I do not know (more…)

I was just beginning to like my job as a resident at the hospital when the stool sample hit the fan. Talk of the Bird Flu stopped just as soon as the first city went up in flames. The news people at Fox tried to blame Al Qeida by throwing turbans on some of the un-dead and filming them as they attacked a military installation. Britt Hume defended the stunt by saying there was no proof the plague of zombies hadn’t been started by insurgents. As far as I was concerned, all the politics were outside my field, I was going to provide quality medical care, even if the patients were dead. (more…)

I woke to the sound of an unpracticed, halting note by note performance of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” wafting quietly in from the rectory. It was early; bright morning light spun shimmering curtains of color through the stained glass windows of the church. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, popping my neck and cursing the pew that had served as my bed for the past two weeks. Things weren’t looking well. We were running dangerously low on supplies, the electricity had finally shut down on us the night before, and the baptismal fount we’d been using to bathe had since grown tepid and questionable for hygienic use. My brother Victor had ventured out for help and supplies two days ago, taking dad’s .9mm and the Tundra, our only working vehicle. We haven’t heard from him since. (more…)