The next week I returned and found your house filled with
the smell of
rotting fruit. "David?" A tiny storm of fruit flies rose,
frantic,
scattering. The peaches had darkened to sepia and raw umber,
furred blue
and gray. "Duddy, are you here?"
Crumpled gold paper and white silk ribbon lay on the table
next to the
celadon bowl. "It's me." The heavy brass candlesticks stood
empty.
I picked up the stiff paper and folded it into a neat
square. I rolled
the ribbon around my fingers and set it next to the paper.
"Are you
here?" Nothing in your house answered.
That night I had closed the black velvet box, and with the
muffled snap,
I thought it would be all over, as the swift fall of the
curtain signals
the certain end of a tragic opera. But you said, "No," an
echo refusing
my refusal, and so we sat, each of us stunned, separate,
watching the
candles gutter, the flickering, failing light, flailing,
merciless,
flinging our shadows again and again on opposite walls.
More About Miriam N. Kotzin:
Miriam N. Kotzin teaches literature and creative writing at
Drexel University in Philadelphia, and directs the Certificate
Program in Writing and Publishing. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in: ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (print) and online in Slow Trains, Smoke Long Quarterly, Littoral, Storied World, The
Glut, Toasted Cheese, SaucyVox, HiNgE, The Beat, Yankee Pot Roast, The Rose & Thorn, rumble, The Quarterly Staple, Southern Ocean Review, Dead Mule, and Xaxx. Her poetry has appeared in print journals, such as: The Iron Horse Literary Review, The Painted Bride Quarterly, Boulevard (where she is a contributing editor), The Mid-American Review, The Southern Humanities Review, Pulpsmith, Confrontation; and online publications such as Small Spiral Notebook, Drexel Online Journal, the Vocabula Review, Three Candles, the Poetry Super Highway, For Poetry.com., Word Riot, The Front
Street Review, Open Wide, Segue, Shampoo, Eclectica, FRiGG, Flashquake, Circle Magazine, Branches, Plum Ruby Review, Gator Springs Gazette, Blaze, The Green Tricycle, Riverbabble, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mini Mag,
Snow Monkey, Maverick Magazine, Poems Niederngasse, Carnelian, Facets, Another Toronto Quarterly and Valparaiso Poetry Review.
You can email Miriam at mkotzin@worldnet.att.net.