Approaching Scylla
The memo from the Risk Department said, “Lighten the ship. Wrong times ahead.” So we ran fear and pity up the lines like silver bodies snatched from the sea.
It’s what men do. We wanted everyone to enjoy the pleasure appropriate to our tragedy. “Catharsis achieved, sir,” We snapped a salute to our god-favored captain.
And though some of us thought that maybe the long way around Sicily would be better, we adopted the calm sneer of Apollo for luck and made ready to take one for the team.
It didn’t take a mouthful of ram’s blood to see something absurd about our deaths.
Arguments For
I was comfortable with a hand-me-down reality. There were only two ways of looking at it.
Loading a third meant risking critical mass. The billboard read, “X.” I took that as a good sign.
A sort of tranquility tinged with terror. When the graves spilled out, I took French leave.
I saw the Slender Man. He pled the fifth. Zut alors mon amie. Such are the fortunes of war.
Stop looking at me that way with your compound eye, stink eye, evil eye, eye for fashion.
Call me crazy, but I know what I saw. Baby, I was eating subtext before you were born.
“Don’t go all literal on me,” the White Rabbit said, You can’t make an egg without breaking a few omelets.
Chris Bullard is a retired judge who lives in Philadelphia, PA. In 2022, Main Street Rag published his poetry chapbook, Florida Man, and Moonstone Press published his poetry chapbook, The Rainclouds of y. His poetry has appeared recently in Jersey Devil, Stonecrop, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Waccamaw and other publications. He was nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize.