We snuck away into a barn built around nineteen-oh-three that couldn't withstand the smallest spark, we were warned. The asphalt skillet in the afternoon put a gradual burn under our crisscross sunny-sides-down. The church bells rang a higher key in these parts than what I was used to, but Friday was Good enough alone. This was my first year not reenacting the Passion in a long while. Poor Mother. I sat myself on a toolbox and studied the subtleties in shade between dust, ash, nickel, while her glass inhalant whistles soared her above the gongs. I could only follow suit.


Brian Alvarado is a sonnet, opera, and craft beer enthusiast born and raised in the Bronx, N.Y. He has contributed poetry to Susquehanna University's Rivercraft, along with the literary journals Contraposition, the Insomniac Propagandist, DenimSkin, and Really Short Stories. @Brahvocado