A Small Price & Without Warning

By MICHAEL ROBINS

The boy circles once more through the kitchen, past the ledge of photographs & the St. Francis tin, inside of which sleeps whatever’s left of the dog. My boy shows no signs of slowing down despite my tired oration on the topics of physics & premonitions, that denouement when I too was a spinning child & my head tripped down its irreversible path into the solid corner of the piano bench. No signs of slowing down nor do I mention how, playing ghost & turning beneath the sheet, I felt like a cannonball, I felt like nothing else speeding through darkness & then through the fog near the rocky shore. Afterwards, I knew only gravity, my blood, the irrefutable bleeding.

 

[Purchase Issue 30 here.]

 

Michael Robins is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Bright Invisible. He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he teaches in the MFA program at McNeese State University and serves as editor of The McNeese Review.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

A Small Price & Without Warning

Related Posts

Cover of Liquid, a love story

Translating Toward Possibility: Sarah Faux Interviews Mariam Rahmani

MARIAM RAHMANI
I have given myself permission to take up more space. For a lot of writers, that is actually the gift that they give themselves. I knew going into Liquid that I was buying time to some extent. There was something about my prior book that wasn't exactly where I wanted it, so that book wasn't shopped around to editors at all. I needed time.

Tethered Hearts

LARA ATALLAH
The city is angry with love. Its sidewalks echo Beirut, and a life there, long-forgotten, languishing in the rearview mirror. Everywhere I look, an almost-déjà-vu skims the walls of my mind. Buenos Aires is Beirut, is Paris, is an aubade to the lost and never found. Down by Recoleta, Haussmann buildings dot the avenues.