| The moan of a floorboard warns of approach and I shutter my eyes. The sigh I've learned to hate confirms her presence at the doorway. Are you asleep? in a desperate tone that requires no answer and wishes for none. She continues to the guestroom— her new sanctuary. The word asshole follows her steps back down the hallway, reacquires its target and impacts with enough force to expel held breath. I allow the whirring fan blades to draw me deeper, study the puzzle from different angles and wonder: when love took on the odor of gangrene; why that fucking truck driver hadn’t just put it in reverse and made sure; and who is being amazed by my wife’s sexual precision. I fall asleep on crisp linen. |
Trace Estes began his love
affair with the written word at the age of seven, and many decades later
is still a loyal worshiper. He is a husband and father--and they
all know about the affair. He is forced to write every day by
a pissed-off muse with a gun.The gun has been effective, as Trace has
recent publications in Real Eight View, WORM #34, kaleidowhirl, a
number of Crescent Moon Journals, and the print anthology Mind
Mutations. |