The Bluestone Review Spring 2022

What kind of friend are you, anyway? What kind of story is this that follows me like a mirror, like a newborn’s silence, like the fairy tale’s lungs and liver, like the executioner’s solemn promise to follow through despite the weather.

Welcome Home Party By Marc Harshman

There used to be a real me, but I had it surgically removed. -- Peter Sellers

The sky tapped at the window he’d opened every day back when it was work and sleep and sometimes even love. Late April and the world had tipped over into spring, birch keys hanging from clusters of pale, green leaves

A soldier returned from war and his wife’s bed too warm. He opened the window, let out the old smell, wondered about all the new ones.

In the rain the white bones of the sycamore gleamed where lamplight fell out of the window and found them.

He’d climb that tree with his claws, find a path when the clouds parted and the moon burned each shadow into giving up their secrets.

The lilac smelled like perfume. The dead groundhog smelled like home. The rotting tubers were only garnish. It was too early to tell if these broken images

could give any more relief than feeling the gentle recoil of an M4 set against stone finding an anonymous target as faceless as her new lover.

51