by Charles Rafferty

People head home under all sorts of circumstances – the road made blurry by a third glass of wine or dirty wipers, a child who won’t stop kicking. Earlier today I saw a man with so many balloons inside his car I was afraid he’d cause an accident. Now I can’t stop thinking about the jaws of life, how if they pried apart his car, the balloons would hurry skyward. Some people prefer that kind of showmanship. They like the idea of their birthday wish snagged on this high, unreachable branch. 

Charles Rafferty has a new collection of prose poems out from BOA Editions, A Cluster of Noisy Planets. His latest story collection is Somebody Who Knows Somebody (Gold Wake). His novel, Moscodelphia, was published by Woodhall Press. Currently, he co-directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College and teaches at the Westport Writers’ Workshop.