Postcards

Her father named her Louise. She spent summer evenings greeting passersby from a porch swing. Wore a pearl sweater with an indigo rose over her heart, even during the humid nights of August. Neighbor kids hinted at her secret recipe for divinity. Whispered her boyfriend embalmed the departed in the undertaker’s basement. That she raised magpies indoors. She spent years reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Marking her place with postcards her father sent her from layovers in Whynot or Truth or Consequences or the plains town with the infamous jackalope museum. He always closed with affection. And a different name.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in Alien Buddha, Prole, and The Rye Whiskey Review. Poems are forthcoming in Ryder Magazine, Stormwash: Environmental Poems, and Punk Noir Magazine.