by Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber

When I saw you I saw you with laser-beam sight as I left Empenadas by Stella still singing; I sang my girl’s name and I knew all my light was projected in open-faced stance; as one sinning, her car coat swung in; I pushed open her door; my right hand slipped smoothly along her warm waist, unspooling her laughter, my hand finding more, I could sense my wife passing, my tongue knew her taste and I thought about standing and stammering saying but she is so warm and so firm and so willing – a true son of Belleville, a Belleville worth slaying, whose gold in the palm runs unmelted and chilling –  a moment a minute I feign an excuse, my tongue all a-tumble, unthreaded as Theseus now tired of treading a labyrinth life that reduced me to eyes seeing only the clew… in New York in your bed over more royal tread do I hear the train hear the train hear the train take you but trailing behind were those shining steel threads that were caught in the caught in the stairs’ endless climb; I will pin down your pines, then, Oh Minna: I’ll break you.

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Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber has fiction in SmokeLong Quarterly, New South, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Shotgun Honey, and she is a Best Small Fictions 2016 Finalist. She reads for Pithead Chapel, reviews for Change Seven Magazine, and is writing her first novel. Follow her @AEWeisgerber, or visit anneweisgerber.com