Issue 6: David Chorlton

by Paula Lietz

Aftermath

A pleasure boat rests

on a building’s roof;

two vehicles lie still

like a pair of dice

rolled for luck;

the people waiting

to buy food

all turn their faces toward

the burning power plant;

two white umbrellas move

across a bare patch

among acres of destruction;

a house sails away

with its front window

facing the sky;

coffins float in pale rows

on a blue floor;

a finger traces the names

on lists pinned to a wall

and a man in his ceramic store

holds two halves of a plate

to show the jagged fault line

where it broke.

David Chorlton lived in England and Austria before moving to Arizona in 1978. After publishing several poetry collections, his newest book is The Taste of Fog, from Rain Mountain Press, his first work of fiction, and the result of a long-standing interest in Vienna’s shadow side.

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