Red Umbrella

A girl from my class stopped me in the hallway of the school. Pointing at my big, red umbrella, voice soaked in contempt: “Red umbrella? You must be trying to stand out.”

I checked my reflection in her lip gloss – tall, handsome Roi de Bohème. “I fancy it looks sorta like a sword – makes me feel like I’m in Final Fantasy”, I say and smile.

“…like a sword” she mockingly caws to her friend will they fade out of sight and relevance.

Really there are equal parts white as there are red, but nobody sees them
Easy to ignore, I guess – red over white
Don’t they say in newspaper “If it bleeds it leads”?

Underneath night sky like a moth-eaten blanket, this soaked
Man’s shouting to himself and waving his arms; a swarm of flies about past carrion, starving -
Bones have been picked clean, chewing only memory of slick ruby flesh

Raving obituary monologues, maybe defending himself from the
Episcopalian detractors talking to the wrong god

Lonely little hole in the fabric of things
Looking down a bleeding bill at the white lines of future, he’s people I know:
All the times they should have stopped or changed