Long held
Estimates
Suggest
Our star,
In main
sequence,
Will burn
For another
Five billion
Years.
And at that time,
A roiling
Ember,
Swollen from
Firesworn
Devouring
Of elements
It will
Embrace
The last trace
Of us,
The dust that
Knit the lattice
Of our form,
And welcome
Us home.
Author: Aphelia
Miracles
“Tom’s truck slowed and then stopped on the side of the road near where Marilyn and Henry stood.
“Fuck.” He said through gritted teeth as he raised a hand in greeting. Tom climbed out of his truck and waved back, then started across the field toward him. Henry busied himself during the brief walk Tom made across the field from the road. It would be too awkward standing there watching him get closer. He’d be too angry, too. He gave the plow a visual once over, looking for any damage from being tossed. Nothing seemed amiss. He started to walk around the front of Marilyn, who reared again and scraped at the ground with one foot. Henry suspected she could pick up on his emotions and could feel his animosity toward Tom. Or maybe Tom had been messing around his barn as he suspected and gave her reason to be nervous. He spotted a large black rock jutting up from a rut in the earth and turned it over with his foot. He was staring down at it when Tom approached.
“Hey, Hen.” Tom called him this regularly. Henry hated it. He did not look up.
“Hello, Tom.” He said it distractedly, still trying to make sense of what he saw.
“Just passed your boy on his way to school. He looked mighty out of sorts. All well over here?”
Henry still hadn’t looked up at the man who he suspected had something to do with the fuckery his livestock had been put through recently. He shook his head slowly. He got feelings about people from time to time, and when old Tom died and his land went to Tom Jr., a hard lump formed at the base of his throat he could never quite shake. Long nights he debated whether what he felt was right or if the death of Addie had pushed him over into some form of insanity still undiscovered by shrinks and fools. Things had been hard, no doubt, but he felt he and the boy had come through it relatively alright. He kept his scars in shadow for the most part, not allowing mortal eyes to see them.
“No, Tom, it ain’t well” He threw a bit too much salt on that last word but didn’t feel bad about it. In fact, it felt good to let Tom know he wasn’t a pushover, even if it was in a passive way.
Tom took a step back and put his hands up in mock surrender.
“Alright, now Hen, no need to take a tone, I was just inquirin’ on account of the state of your boy. He was a right mess. Dirt everywhere an –“
“I think you know damn well what transpired here. You been sniffin’ around my barn and now we lost Mag. I think the two are related.”
For the first time Henry lifted his head and gave Tom a hard look. He’d laid it all on the table for good or naught. His thoughts drifted to Sam and how this would all affect him. Fear crept up behind his eyes and Tom saw it. His lip curled in an expression of amusement tinged with contempt. The old man had the balls to call him out on his misdoings but wasn’t in any condition to back it up with action. Tom dropped his hands and took two strides toward Henry, a malicious chuckle trickling from his mouth. He spat on the ground and started to move between Henry and Marilyn, uncomfortably close to Henry’s face. Tom tensed his jaw and spoke in low tones that were spiked with a hint of mirth.
“I told ya’ll I’d have your land.” He spat. “Ain’t natural for your kind to own land. It’s a waste.” Henry was no stranger to having people talk this way to him, and it came as less of a surprise from a man like Tom.
“I made a fair offer. When you refused, I tried another tack. How long you think this ass here got left in her? And then what? What’ll you buy new mules with, Hen? Your good looks? Fuck.”
He began to laugh. The tension stiffened Henry’s shoulders and Tom’s laughter reverberated through him, making his sore shoulder throb and ache. It reverberated through Marilyn too, who brayed and reared up again, the too close stranger and the emotions she felt from Henry culminating in protest.
The motion of the mule knocked Tom into Henry hard. Tom took it as an opportunity and when he regained his balance swung and hit Henry square on the jaw, knocking him back into freshly turned dirt and manure. The shock and pain made Henry vomit a bit and he spat a mouthful of that morning’s breakfast into the soil beside him. Tom straddled him, pulling his arm back again meaning to finish the job. Henry felt around for that strange rock he’d unearthed and hefted it in one hand. It was way heavier than a rock of its size ought to be, but that served Henry fine. He swung it up at Tom’s face and closed his eyes. He’d done half a day’s work and his shoulder screamed in protest, but the hit was forceful enough and made a sickening sound.
Tom crumpled in a heap, head cocked awkwardly against Marilyn’s front legs, his arms hanging limply at his side, all the fight gone out of him. Marilyn stumbled slightly at the dead weight knocked against her and shifted sideways, letting Tom fall flat underneath her. Henry feared the worst. He stared for a good minute at Tom’s chest, willing the familiar rise and fall of breathing to return, but he was gone. God forgive him, he had killed Tom Bradford.”
This is an excerpt of the short story “Miracles” appearing in Sylacauga, an anthology of short fiction and poetry surrounding the meteor event in Sylacauga, Alabama in 1954. out now on Amazon .
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Thanks to your readership, Disremembering is now #1 in the Poetry About Nature category on Amazon! Thank you so much for your continued support of my artistic endevours! It means the world to me!
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Sylacauga
Sylacauga is an anthology of poetry, speculative fiction, and horror based around the 1954 meteor event over Sylacauga, Alabama. You can now purchase a copy now on Amazon: HERE
Sylacauga features poetry by Leah McNaughton Lederman and Stefani Manard and short stories by David Brown, Christopher Charlton, Stan Konopka, Tracy Konopka, Shelly Van Allen and Myself. Cover art by Matt Soffe!

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An Epitaph
Will the earth
With my bones
Swallowed
Find the marrow
Lacks?
Will the grey
Veined clay
Gather in the
Defects?
Will the stones
Laugh?
Carried in the water
In rivulets
With the weight of
Evaporated eons.
In red, roaring wastes,
Will the water wait?
Carving earth in
Mountain and canyon,
What will it make
Of the hollow things that
Once held this shape?
When scattered
Will I finally
Be lovely?
Will I finally be
Comely when
Rearranged?
A promise
Like feathers,
Like lead
Cradled in
The trembling
Of existence.
The ache
Burrowed
And silenced
In silt.
MJGS 3/2/22
Aggregate
Moss covered stone
Sun beckoned
The snow runs off,
Stays in shadow.
Petrichor and
Woodsmoke.
Its said to
Follow beauty,
But forgets.
Swift water flows,
Slows at the bend
In the middle frozen
Hand outstretched
Hard pack and
Hardpan
Veins of quartz
Veins of clay
Dust and ash
Pockmarked with
Grinding rock
Laden and vacant
A thousand years.
Shot rock
In granite
In agate
In aggregate.
Pine needles
In a panic.
Wind summoned.
The sun sets
And fills pockets
Valleys
Inlets
Seethes against
Mountainside.
Long strides
And echo
Against cliff face.
Falling and fallen
Pebbles and ember.
Oxygen fed and
Carbon starved
Stars burn and
Scatter
Then
Burrow
Nestle
Soften the
Darkness.
Disremembering

I have recently released a volume of collected poetry spanning 2014-2021. This visceral and revealing collection is available at the following links:
Digital and unsigned physical copies: Amazon
Signed physical copies: Etsy & Nihtgenga Press
Ladies of Horror – November

Jack’s Regret
by Michelle Joy Gallagher
“Jack hadn’t slept since he drowned Elise. He hadn’t set out to hurt her. She’d just said so many things that wounded him in short order, leaving him no time to recover. The passion and fire in her that first drew his eye quickly left him burned. It left no working patience in him. They had been walking along the shore when she’d brought up Beatrice. Beatrice. Why had he ever given her the time of day?”
Read the rest here