Kevin Grauke

An Invitation, of Sorts

I whispered in your good ear
about fires burning backward
as the music died around us
and smoke withdrew into my fist.

A cabin on stilts sits in the desert
in darkness and silence and in the blood
of signatures echoing infinitely in a pair
of mirrors cracked in half by an egg.

This is my home, I say. Please be my guest.
Sleep on my green naugahyde couch
while I gather the last mice into a bowl
and finish the skim milk you brought.

Here, night ends when the sun loses
its scab, okay? Be long gone before this.

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Kevin Grauke has published work in The Southern Review, Cimarron Review, Sycamore Review, Blue Mesa Review, Sou'wester and Quarterly West, to name a few. His collection of stories, Shadows of Men (Queen's Ferry Press), won the Steven Turner Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Originally from Texas, he teaches at La Salle University in Philadelphia.