The Way Things are Sometimes

Over the hole, he hung the lights to please his boyhood. He fell down into the hole as he hung the
lights. To please his mother he handed the lights to his hands and hung them. His mother looked
up while the catwife purred and petswayed. To hang the lights he fell backward into boyhood
where he climbed up to please his mother.

The wind whipped from the east and rolled and curled and smacked the trees against the house as
she flew the shutters to please her mother. She flew the shutters while looking back at herself in
the mirror. In the mirror, she watched the window as wind whipped from the east as she flew the
shutters to please her mother.

The wind, to please the lights, flew backward into the moon and into its light curled upward and
backward into its mother, the light who beckoned the wind, the wind who flew backward from the
moon.

____

Stephen Scott Whitaker is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and managing editor for The Broadkill Review. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Oxford Poetry, The Scores, Anderbo, Grub Street, Miracle Monocle and others. His novel of weird fiction, Mulch, is forthcoming from Montag Press. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with his family.