Charles Grosel
Beneath the Tile
The word of the day is mellow,
or maybe tender, like the bruise
on a pear or the wrinkle on the page
that hiccupped through the printer.
The message has been delivered,
and now it's the long slog through
normal, as if we can pretend that
nothing has changed, or everything.
We don't see the paint peel or
the glue wear away beneath the tile,
not until the roof caves in and
the drywall crumbles in the rain.
Bio
An editor, writer, and poet, Charles Grosel lives in Arizona. He has published stories in Western Humanities Review, Red Cedar Review, Water-Stone, and The MacGuffin as well as poems in Slate, The Threepenny Review, Poet Lore, and Harpur Palate, among others. To pay the bills, Charles owns the communications firm, Write for Success.