8.5. Robert Vaughan: 1 flash, 1 poem

Spin-the-bottle

The red and white coke logo came into focus against the clear glass as it stopped on the red floor planks.

I clapped my hands together. “You two have to kiss now!”

“That’s sick,” Tracy cried. “We’re cousins!”

“Gross,” Timmy added. “Let me spin over.”

The July heat pressed through the roof slats. Cicadas buzzed in their high pitches.

“Do you ever get bees in here?” Danny asked. He stared at our peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwiches, half- eaten, stacked on paper plates.

I nodded, sweating. It was like heaven, hosting everyone in my treehouse. Just like Mom and Dad’s parties where everybody ends up with different people in the poolhouse.

Stone Wall

A wall that curves,
not into an S, still
senseless, stuck aside

a serpentine, soggy beach
evidenced by creeping vines atop
a lichen paint-by-number,

not oils or mosaic
but liquid planets:
what increment of life sheds stone?

One wall
scales another…

If only I could tell
where one stone ends,
this ruin cleaves

forever on
into a wooden copse
without relief

Photography by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

About:

Robert Vaughan’s plays have been produced in N.Y.C., L.A., S.F., and Milwaukee where he resides. He leads two writing roundtables for Redbird- Redoak Studio. His prose and poetry is published in over 150 literary journals such as Elimae, Metazen and BlazeVOX. He has short stories anthologized in Nouns of Assemblage from Housefire, and Stripped from P.S. Books. He is a fiction editor at JMWW magazine, and Thunderclap! Press. He co-hosts Flash Fiction Fridays for WUWM’s Lake Effect. His blog: http://rgv7735.wordpress.com.