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Leaving Ketchum
by Christopher Stolle Papa rose from his grave to witness solar–lunar phenomena he missed while driving his ambulance in Italy. Sirens sounded for him one month later. He caught shrapnel at Fossalta de Piave while handing out chocolates to foxhole prey. He carried an injured man to safety and ignored scorching heat burning his skin-- not unlike wounds healing and unhealing before his eyes. Like then, now he knew he needed to go west, where crowds gathered to see if eschaton would descend. But everyone went home alive, sullen or overjoyed—except Papa. “They used to come here to revere me,” he thought. “But I’m an afterthought who curries no visitors. Ghosts can’t compete with shadows anymore.” |
Christopher Stolle’s writing has appeared most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Edify Fiction, Contour, The New Southern Fugitives, The Gambler, Gravel, The Light Ekphrastic, Sheepshead Review, and Plath Poetry Project. He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House, and he lives in Richmond, Indiana.
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