Snout Face

“No Getting In” by Beverly Rose Joyce

Not now, but soon, I will be leaving Busby. Busby, whose eyes are dark marbles, whose eyes don’t meet mine anymore. His face is long, like a bear face, his mouth wide and gaping like he could swallow a salmon whole. Soon it will be the barren season, dry and famine, like a town up north where starving polar bears invade, just clomping down Main Street, nosing into garbage cans, and the people adjust by leaving their car doors open for pedestrians to dive into. No one blames a bear for being a bear, and so I can’t blame Busby for being Busby. I knew he was snort and prowl when I met him. Now, I leave my heart open so he can dive in anytime. Like when he’s lost another job because his boss was a dick or some other Busby logic. But soon, not now, not today, I will get tired of it all. Get tired of being flipped and flapped in Busby’s snout mouth. I will restart myself in forage mode, adapt myself for a long hungry winter, curl up in the hand of my own empty heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Francine Witte’s flash fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. Most recently, her stories have been in Best Small Fictions and Flash Fiction America. Her latest flash fiction book is Just Outside the Tunnel of Love (Blue Light Press.) Her upcoming collection of poetry, Some Distant Pin of Light is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in NYC. Visit her website francinewitte.com.

about the artist

Beverly Rose Joyce is a poet, photographer, and plein air painter who lives in Brecksville, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, with her husband, Carl, and their two daughters, Mallory and Samantha, along with their two dogs, Shadow and Reggie. She holds a BA in English from Baldwin-Wallace University and a MA in English from Cleveland State University, and she was a public high school English teacher for sixteen years. Her visual and literary art has been published in numerous art and literary journals and magazines, as well as in various anthologies.