Eric is a Humanities teacher (his favorite class to teach is Literature in Film), a former professional baseball player, and he’s taught chess to children for over a decade. Eric holds an MFA in poetry from Murray State University, and his poems have appeared, or will be appearing, in such publications as: Plain Spoke, The Stray Branch, Atlantic Pacific Press, Ceremony, The 2018 Surrealist/Outsider Anthologie, and The International Anthology on Paradoxism.
Norman, OK
All the ingredients are there for a fine Midwestern
story. The old horse is by the dirt road, large head
chewing sideways the hay, muzzle hanging out over
the gray split-rail fence, tasting hay, sniffing air.
And at the boy passing, he does not neigh—the boy,
not a boy anymore, but home. The un-locked back
screen door creaks as usual, he walks in. After a hug
from his mother, a shared smile while she holds his shoulders,
no words, he sits down at the kitchen table with his father, his
mother, the silk blue flower arrangement in the pale white vase,
which hasn’t changed in years, between them. His dad
says he’s happy to see him. Coffee is brewing on
the stove—begins to percolate. The boy picks at the edge
of the placement in front of him—just as he used to. His
mother says, “don’t pick”, his father says
nothing, but he takes his thumbnail; digs
the nail in deep between hard plastic and soft foam,
and says, while not looking at them but instead
at the placemat, which has a teeny tilted windmill
pictured on it, “I’m seeing someone. It’s not a he.”
Coffee is ready.