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January 11, 2023

The Monster's Name

Any life gets dealt out

in breakneck fortune. 

Coming no other way until,

as day leads on to day,

the desperate holder,

(confusing holding 

for owning 

the whole way)

has no choice,

no chance other

than to give it all away. 

 

Precious holder 

of place and time

knows all this

somewhere, maybe deep

and maybe not,

but certainly silenced by 

skyscraper screens,

sincere eyes caressing 

all there is that preens, 

cave shadow things

that make any story 

telling life was never ours

seem like careless 

make believe. 

 

So shush the children off to bed,

reminding them –

The monster’s name is never said.

​

___

© the author

by Zac Walsh

 Zac Walsh’s work has appeared in journals such as Cimarron Review, Alligator Juniper, The Awakenings, The Charleston Anvil, Light/Dark, Inscape, Big Lucks, Lime Hawk, Spectre Magazine, Gulf Stream, the DuPage Valley Review, and The Platte Valley Review, as well as in the anthologies Blood on the Floor and Small Batch. He lives in a small, unincorporated town in California with his fiance and two very old dogs. 

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