Sunday, Jack Tar Hotel, Room 773, Three O’Clock
after The Conversation
So much depends upon one word,
us,
and the stress placed upon it, how it wraps
death
in a shower curtain, lays it down on a made
bed,
and prods a quiet man to play saxophone
alone
in a bare room he has, with unmerciful hands, just
destroyed.
Kevin Grauke is the author of Shadows of Men (Queen's Ferry Press), which won the Steven Turner Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, Quarterly West, Blue Mesa Review, and Cimarron Review. He teaches at La Salle University in Philadelphia.