Reading

The voices in the books
were like the voices of the dead.
I did not hear them.

— Sherwood Anderson, "The Other Woman"

RIP

"I think I am going to die."

She did not even blink
when she replied.

"That would be best,"
she said. "Then we could
both have some peace."

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"

Landscaping

The waterway behind the house
is the color of putrid blood.
Dead leaves float in the brown,
stagnant water like debris
from an explosion.
Green and brown coconuts
bob like decapitated heads.

– Patricia Cornwell, "Predator"

Breath

Their gasp
was like cold wind
passing through
dead trees.
-- Stephen King, "The Little Sisters of Eluria"
(from "Everything's Eventual")