Your Dead Body Can Wait

I didn’t pick up the phone

In case you had died.

If I ignored the ringing

Once, twice, ten times

You would still be alive

like Paris!, narrow streets, too many people, your kitchen, never knew how to clean

sun is nice! except it reveals your grime 

ta crasse dégueulasse toute cette crasse 

Look! It’s everywhere, on my finger, passed inside the bowls, 

a pile so high it collects the light,

your rocking world of misery, that your landlord will use against me.

The melody kept going, 

And I spent a peaceful night

With him

Together in our watery green sheets, matching his pjs and what we have in our bathroom.

I love this silence. 

I admit. 

I love it without you.

Yes, you had to be dead.

They shot up the venue.

The band’s name, it’s what you like. 

Because you’re dark, you’re crazy.

If you’re dead, there’s nothing I can do now.

You are, my child, tomorrow’s problem.

Sophie Ann Hinkson spent much of her life in France, where she worked as a bookseller and literary journalist for both magazines and radio. Now based in Chicago, she teaches French and is currently pursuing a Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside. Her fiction has appeared in Midwest Weird and Night Shades Magazine, and her poetry in Raging Opossum Press Magazine. At home, she shares her life with her husband, a black cat, and six pet rats.