Tim Gardiner
Devil’s Mark
The last regular departs after a more than generous amount of drinking up time. There’s just the two of us left with the usual jobs before locking up: cashing up the till, cleaning the tables and unloading the dishwater. I wonder where you are tonight, probably still out the back with the shadows in the old stables. Or maybe you’re in the beer garden where the town’s prison stood in the time of the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins. The nefarious bastard dragged Elizabeth Clark from the pub to be tortured, imprisoned and hanged as a “witch” in collusion with the devil. But it’s not their ghosts I wait for. You are much more subtle, easy to forget about until you appear like unwanted memories of an abusive and unloved partner.
corner of the eye—
a shadow passes
the window
filling the doorway
with emptines
About the Author
Dr. Tim Gardiner is an ecologist, editor, poet and children’s author from Manningtree in Essex, UK. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies. Former co-editor of the tanka prose section of Haibun Today with Tish Davis.