Image by Natascha Graham.
i have seen the winter sun rise
over the trail surrounding the lake
light tumble down the shore breaks
a stricken man plunging to water
and laughed while my hot breath in clouds
dissipated before me and ducks paddled away
i observed graffiti beneath the concrete bridge
and imagined the lives of those nighttime writers
dodged the slow grandmothers in brimmed hats
walking three or four abreast blocking the entire
trail as frustrated bikers in stretch pants and
mirrored glasses hunt for passage around
and i ran up into the hills then back down
to the trails and the city was completely
drunk and wasted at 8am like some
hooligan day-drinker and i remembered
my boyhood and all my life in this town
i felt completely in love as Romeo upon
his first glimpse of Juliet across a crowded
party and i climbed the steep grade
back toward my little house in the sunlight
to shower and get ready for my day
Wallace Barker lives in Austin, Texas. He has been published in Neutral Spaces Magazine, Reality Hands, Misery Tourism and Expat Press. More of his work can be found at wallacebarker.com.
Raised simultaneously by David Bowie and Virginia Woolf, Natascha Graham writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as writing for stage and screen. She lives with her wife in a house full of sunshine on the east coast of England.
Her play, How She Kills, was performed by The Mercury Theatre in August 2020 and broadcast on BBC radio in September. Her second play, Confessions: The Hours, has been performed by Thornhill Theatre London, Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, BBC Radio Suffolk, and both have been selected by Pinewood Studios and Lift-Off Sessions as part of their First Time Filmmakers Festival 2020.
Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction essays have been previously published by Acumen, Litro, Every Day Fiction, The Sheepshead Review, Yahoo News and The Mighty.
Natascha also has an upcoming poetry pamphlet published with Tall Lighthouse in 2021, and writes a continuing radio drama for BBC Radio Suffolk.