Still Life

 


 

Still Life

 

 

June’s eyes took in the round kitchen table

littered with crumbs of wheat toast and two

bleached napkins stained with strawberry jam.

The cat jumped from her lap and tipped over

an empty glass. She watched it roll to the edge,

fall, and shatter.

 

An unfamiliar man had appeared in her dream

again and announced their house would shake

from a widening crack in the earth’s mantle.

 

And thirty minutes ago when the morning news

hour began, while Charles poured fresh coffee

into her mug, he told her he was moving out …

needed a new connection to something vital.

A fault line was evident in their [blank].

 

What was the word he used? Their what?

Their [blank] what?

 

Her mind went blank, dotted only with tan

crumbs, red smears on napkins, and a coat tree

that toppled over when he grabbed his cap

and strode with focus out the door.

 

 

Jean Biegun

  

 Jean Biegun’s poetry has appeared in over 100 journals, anthologies, art exhibits, and even in a gumball machine at a state poetry convention. In 2022, her chapbook HITCHHIKERS TO EDEN was published by Kelsay Books, she was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE by GYROSCOPE REVIEW, and awarded Best Prose Poem of 2021 by EASTERN IOWA REVIEW. Poems have appeared in ARIEL CHART, DOOR IS A JAR, MUDDY RIVER POETRY REVIEW, AS IT OUGHT TO BE, and many other places.

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