communion

blanket
and sombrero
dropped
in a pile,
she runs
through a vacant
city of gold,
echoes thudding
against eardrums,
sweat pouring
in a hum.

the priest
rings a bell
to the stirring
dust,
wipes his forehead
with the back of his hand,
spits,
walks back to the bottle
and eats the worm.

she calls him father.
he waves her in.
their arms
slow in the heat.

risky business

paintings
locked in
colour

and boulders
in falling rock zones,
never really falling.

you’ve never seen
a pebble bounce
or heard a hard crack
and you know
if you drive through
this same threatening
stretch of road
every year
and locate the same
boulder on a
precipitous ledge
it will always be
el cid dead on his horse
which gives you something
to talk about.

pigments are never
diluted with water
but seasons
change your taste
in fruits and vegetables
and leave you nothing
to choose at the market
except endive and spinach.
and the heavy green of one colour
is a still life’s
red tablecloth
hung over the edge
in perfect folds
of
shadowed smiles with teeth unseen

improving the drainage

walking along the street
near my home
where machines
are putting in new sewers;

no humans to be seen here.

just yellow backhoes and orange cranes
red dump trucks
with windows layered in foggy brown
and not a human within them,
not a movement.

slabs of concrete
and asphalt piled
for a campfire,
it seems;

smells captured under bulldozers
and released as steam.
a whole neighbourhood
glued in chaos
and coated in the sewage
of wet dust.

walking past the detour signs
and plastic blinking lights,
generators thumping failing thumping.

home finally
but not really there,
crouched unsteadily
on the sidedoor steps
fingering spider webs,
teasing apart the smells of bean soup
and a flooded basement.

props

the old men
who play chess
in parks

rarely speaking,
smoking tobacco
spitting juice
as young boys
watch and
run
for sandwiches
and coffee.
as sun
sprinkles through
the trees
just enough
and the breeze
folds a newspaper
just enough.

i have never seen this.

the old men
who wheeze
and take pills,
cough and
lock in dentures
before the sandwiches;
piss themselves
from the coffee.
who wear safari hats
and measure immortality
with captured pawns.

i have never seen this.

except in movies
                 grainy and frightening
whose titles i forget.

soft landing

chocolate evening
drips a candle
of slow light.
coffee,
gurgling breath
of steam aroma is
harboured in dreams
of unthinking
skin.
closed eyes
and the exquisite deadness
falls through murmurs
of crossed and barricading arms.
my hair is uncombed
my breath is unwashed
my heart is a trampoline
(and not a pump) so warmth
splashes randomly and
grease flies from bacon
but doesn’t burn;

a rare moment.

Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York. His work has appeared or, is forthcoming, in The Cardiff Review, The Cordite Review, Roi Faineant, North Dakota Quarterly, J Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere.