Glenn G. Coats

Gravity

Bone dry that summer
grass
around the wooden
church
burnt to a crisp,
no air conditioning
and the tall windows
shut tight,
women in long
dresses
and men in baggy suits
dabbed their sweaty
brows
with freshly folded
handkerchiefs.

My father
loomed like a tree
beside my mother,
and collapsed—
out cold
during the vows;
Uncle Angus splashed him
awake
with a glass of water,
I asked him, year later,
If it was the heat
or the nearness
of all
those relatives,
“No,” he said,
“It was the tremble
in your mother’s
arm,
and the quiver
in her lips—it was all
too much.”

blinding sun the bouquet drops between them

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About the Author

Glenn G. Coats lives with his wife, Joani, in Carolina Shores, North Carolina. His books include two Snapshot Press collections of haibun, A Synonym for Gone (2021) and Degrees of Acquaintance (2019); Furrows of Snow (Turtle Light Press, 2019), an honorable mention winner in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards; and Another Lost Boat (Pineola Publishing, 2022).

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