Art by Cindy Duhe

Waiting For Calliope Awakened by a silence that doesn't sound quite right, like the quiet calm of a nuclear winter or the stunned shock of the post-assassination crowd, so I lie there under the dark, heart crawling pupils pounding skin dilating, waiting for the sign, and when I hear the subtle scrape of two molecules rubbing me the wrong way I leap into action, grabbing the Louisville Slugger from under the bed and I come out swinging, tasting the satisfying feedback of wood to flesh again and again until I collapse against the wall and flick on the switch with trembling fingers only to find my muse, crumpled in a gossamer heap, battered bruised and bleeding from the eyes like a western Kansas Virgin Mary. John Whitted

______________________________________________________________________ More Poetry by John Whitted, Featured Poet Back to the Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks