No longer the vague whispers
over an indistinct horizon.
No clamoring church bells, only
a doctor’s soft, clinical, sorry sounds.
Do not doubt it.
Rage does smolder in the brush of a dry land.
Fears do bolt from the undergrowth. Soon, too soon,
purgatorial fires –
the chemo, the radiation –
appetites shriveled,
burnt down to pale ashes.
These words, I already see, wither on my lips.
My wife’s eyes pregnant, labored.
Each task in her hands sacramental as any Mass.
Small mercies. Amen.
— STEPHEN REILLY
Stephen Reilly writes from a hinterland with themes as familiar as trips to a supermarket. He retired in 2023 after working more than 30 years as a staff writer for the Englewood Sun, a daily Florida newspaper with circulation in south Sarasota County, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.