BIO
Dan Leach’s short fiction has been published in various literary journals and magazines, including The Greensboro Review, Deep South Magazine, and The New Madrid Review. A native of South Carolina, he graduated from Clemson University in 2008, and taught high-school in Charleston until 2014 when he relocated to Nebraska.Floods and Fires, his debut short-story collection, will be published by University of North Georgia Press in 2016.
dan-leach.com
.
Two
1.
All night branches thrashed
against the bedroom window
scraping at the glass
like desperate plumage
incited by the stars.
Beneath a tattered quilt
two beating hearts converge
as if the world is ending,
a history of intimacy
stuffed into whispered words.
2.
In the morning nothing moves
save sunlight on the wall
carrying the shadows
of a swaying willow tree,
the surest sign of grace.
Atop a tattered quilt
two bodies facing outward
lie in hushed assurance
breathing, breathing, breathing,
with the dawn that came between them.
.
A Hand of Yours
The year stared back at me
like a report card full of C’s
and I, the one with “potential,”
sighed into my champagne
and thought about the future.
A billion silent prayers
cast upon an orb,
upon some gaudy ball of light
hanging high above a city.
We, all of us,
resolve to change.
We are old things
dying to be made brand new.
We drink and sing
and erase and plan.
But can auld acquaintance
be forgot?
Can these old sinners
build new lives?
Doubtful, I hum along.
Having been here many times,
having looked upon that ball
and believed in what could be,
I find it hard to sing.
When the New Year rolled around
I sighed into my glass:
too old by far for promises,
but still young enough for hope.
Here’s to indecision,
to all that hangs above us
on a night as clear as this.
Let that ball of light
forever lead us on.
Whatever the truth might be,
let me find a hand of yours,
let me press my lips against it,
let me just this once
believe in the possibility
of everything and nothing
and possibility itself.