I don’t know why this time was different other than time, air & light that it is, was filling less of me. For fifteen years I was a tick that if pulled would pucker the skin before the neck severed, head still buried and sucking a last second or two, unaware the wine-red blood had nowhere to go.
The Rioja In the back of the pantry had aged since our first year of marriage. Like equity and intimacy, so easy early on, we’d kept it wrong. So when we opened the vinegar it had become, you stopped at a glass while I finished the bottle. On principle, I told myself. Tomorrow I’m quitting. I’m quitting tomorrow.
Chad Rutter is an emerging poet originally from rural Nebraska now residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, both in visual art. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Right Hand Pointing.