PURE FRANCIS

The Man With Rotten Fruit on His Wrist

by Charles Rafferty

Each morning he straps a piece of it on
where someone else would put a watch.
He goes to work and a woman on the train
compliments his cologne. It’s very
citrusy, she says. The sleeve of his overcoat
is hiding the rotten lime, and he accepts
her praise with a smile, a little tip of his chin.
At work he has to be careful not to bump
the fruit against the fabric of his cubicle wall.
People would complain about the sweet-smelling
stains. Already the watermelon juice he dribbled
on the keyboard has made his space bar
unreliable. If it’s a banana, a tiny cloud of fruit flies
sings above his wrist. When someone asks
for the time, he looks at the browned
apple core and says it’s later than he thought,
that there’s no time for tasting like yesterday.
All summer he is followed by wasps. They dance
on the fruit like acrobatic clock hands.
When asked why he straps old fruit to his wrist,
he says simply that ash is impractical,
that fog forgets to linger. Besides, he likes always
being ready to boo a performance,
to plant a small garden at the end of the world.


Charles Rafferty wonders why the rest of the Beatles couldn't get off their stoned asses to play with John on this one.

Pray to the Hamburger

by Andrew Abbott

Andrew Abbott invites you to witness the images that come out of his fingers for some reason.

A Drinking Man

by J. Tarwood

I
Father would have lived
off land, gleefully dirtying
fingers, glowering through Friday
markets, cucumber & carrot,
grape & gooseberry, boxed
like jewels.  Peasantry gone,
he lugged words
for others.  At Christmas,
they left him hard spirits.
His dreams never would work out
how to talk back.

II
Eight hours elsewhere done,
silence like a genie brought
him back.  Pleasing Mother, he gave up
bars, rolling skeletal cigarettes
in Bible-brittle paper, reading
borrowed books returned without
a word.  Bundled good, he drank
gifts to shut up his own,
each cold shot a threshold
to yet another.


J. Tarwood digs photos, specifically the ones right here.

Today Show

by Phillip Sterling

Although I was up early, the yellow horse was already in the kitchen, fixing her own breakfast.  She insisted:  multi-grain toast, water.  Put honey crisps on the list, she said.  I brewed a pot of coffee, fried a rasher of bacon, a pasture of hash browns.  No, thank you, said the yellow horse.  She'd grown since the day before.  I barely had room to pull out the spatula drawer, though it might have been the new island too, the copper sink and blue Corian she'd wanted.  She lifted car keys from the top of the fridge with her lips.  I'm curious, I said.  Don't wait up, she mumbled.  When she was gone, I turned on the TV and thought, maybe later, I'd muck out the stall.


Phillip Sterling has been known to import bread from Colorado.

Riding the Rails

by Linda Ferguson

When we kissed just now, your mouth
tasted like the coffee and apricots they
used to serve on the Orient Express –
remember the blue-green trees and
the minarets, how the cinnamon
turned bitter in its tin?  I still keep a coin
in that metal box, and pretend that it came
from some other country,
or I picture myself inside a theater,
its entrance cordoned off
with tasseled gold rope and its heavy
curtains hanging like the long, full
sleeves of a medieval queen, or I see us
on that safari, when you were
the lion, pawing at the dust,
and I was the turtle in the
pond, sunning my back on
a log.  But when I close my
eyes right now, darling, I am a
dolphin, muscular and sleek,
my body rising, a perfect arc.


Linda Ferguson, in her heart, is famous.