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hand and see him smile back when maybe he wouldn’t if he knew the truth. “How about you? Anything new and exciting?” her father asked. She put the finished sandwich in front of him, open-faced with the bread toasted and every layer visible, a pickle wedge by the side. “Still talking to Norma. She’s sharing tips and tricks.” Her father started eating, and she sat down with half a sandwich herself. He frowned and nodded at the taste as he chewed. “You thinking about doing something with this?” “There isn’t a culinary school around.” “You could make more as a chef than
a waitress.” “I know.” He took a pause and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “And no one’s holding you back?” She looked at her food, then picked it up and bit in. Her father had met Tracy once or twice when they’d been together, had seen the picture of her next to Myra’s bed, framed, the picture that was gone now. He must have figured out she loved Tracy, though she never told him the whole story. How New Hampshire was where Tracy always wanted to be. When they first met at the one local gay club, she’d told Myra over a beer that she was saving money to go north, leave
At Night I Smoke By Dutch Godshalk At night I stand in the street and smoke among rows of dormant cars, and all dark save for sporadic twitching television hues in third floor windows like the last heavy winks of eyelids fighting sleep. When rain leaves dry spheres under uncut trees, when the doors dead-bolted and the street lamps wane a bit and the neighbors upstairs stop pushing furniture around, I stand in the street and spread my arms wide and smoke facing the line of sky where a far off forest’s edge cuts into the horizon and red lit radio towers pulse like postured strings of Christmas bulbs and the stars all strain and shoulder each other to be seen. 6
In the night as breath and smoke converge and rise I stand centered amid arrested life and say nothing, dreaming of sleep. Dutch Godshalk is a poet and playwright living outside of Philadelphia. He holds a BA in English Literature from Arcadia University and currently works as a freelance content writer. In recent years, Dutch has worked as a volunteer for the Philadelphia Writer's Conference. His poetry has previously appeared in Apiary Magazine.
Pennsylvania behind. And if people here ever closed in on her, she’d be gone, money or not. Body toned taut and carried in combat boots, Tracy needed to be visible. Myra looked up at her father eating his chicken. She’d never had a heart to heart with him about loving women, and supposed she might never do so. She had accepted that between them there would long lie certain silences. The next day Myra smelled bacon and buttered toast when she sat up in bed. The sun broke through the curtains. Her father had been to church and back by now, and she pictured him closing the front door as he left, gently so as not to wake her. When they’d lived together she was always excited for her father’s cooking on Sundays, the one day of the week he took his time and made the food his own. Afterward they used to walk to the river. He never spoke to her the way the pastor preached, as if she’d wasted her chance at heaven. Myra doubted her father could imagine that for her. She’d wavered for a while about believing in heaven, but there’d been times, when she sat outdoors alone or with a girlfriend, that had forced her to reconsider. Once she’d sat with Tracy in a pair of folding chairs in her yard, and next to a table torch they talked long into the night, moving inside only when they realized how late it got. Hours when she was happy enough to forget her yard was a hiding place, hours when she was simply Myra. After dressing, she headed downstairs and in the kitchen found her father reading the Sunday edition. He smiled big when he saw her and folded the newspaper up. “Let me get you something,” he said. She sat at the table. He brought her a plate of breakfast just as always. She ate, looked at his eyes, shared the silence with him. “Can we go for a walk?” she finally said. They finished eating and put on jack-
