Volume 14:4, Fall 2013
Prose Poem Issue
Red Cabooses
We spoke, not at the same time, but different periods, one after the other, in succession, and to other people it must have seemed like a discussion, like two concerned men delving deep into what we call life, when in actuality we didn’t understand one another at all, a monologue about childhood model trains, a speech about suicide, and never a crash of one against human flesh, or the memory of one preventing the oncoming death, no, we preferred to look like we talked, that we could shake hands afterwards, while one went to admire his red cabooses, the other cleaning and assembling his revolver, and testing how it would taste when it was pushed deep in his mouth.
Donald Illich's work has been published in The Iowa Review, Nimrod, and Cream City Review. To read more by this author: Donald Illich: Langston Hughes Tribute Issue