Giving Back To will her organs, mom ignored the priest who warned that she might dispossess her soul unless she occupied a church-owned hole. She would make herself useful though deceased. We only learned how badly she’d been fleeced when news broke how the med school doctors stole her parts. She came home to us in a bowl of dust, returned by mail like she’d been leased. That her last merciful corporal act should serve only as a means for cash appalled us, yet the good she did was fact. Recalled to us, this mockery of ash served only to confirm her love. We flash to bits, yet giving, we remain intact.
Open House She had too many thoughts to entertain: unwanted guests who presented their lies like hostess presents. Some would itemize their accusations, then demand “Explain!” while others fell on her like acid rain, as she, bowed down, let them monopolize their tete-a-tete. And though it was unwise, she knew, to drink alone, she poured champagne. Libations quieted those spirits linked to her by shame until, near sleep, she heard their ghosts file back to some hazy precinct, their murmurings muffled and indistinct, their accusations now happily slurred and the world that sent them charmingly blurred.
Chris Bullard was born in Jacksonville, FL, but lives in Philadelphia, PA. Kattywompus Press published High Pulp, a collection of his flash fiction, in 2017. Grey Book Press published his poetry chapbook, Continued, this year.
Grand Little Things 