"Tarantula" and other work by Devon Neal
Tarantula
When you’re lying in the dark bedroom after a fight
and he’s still thudding around the house,
you lie still but can’t sleep
and instead stare up at the ceiling fan,
black and motionless in your adjusting eyes
like a giant spider
sprawled upside down and feeling for movement.
In its jeweled eyes you lie petrified
except for the flutter of your eyelids closing
as he slips into the room.
Work Mornings
The best work mornings
are the ones where the lights are still off
when I walk into the tall, pale door,
but they click on at my movement
and outside, from my fourth-floor view,
the rain signs its name on the glass
and the clouds are charcoal,
the sour streetlights still lit from their darkness
and turned into watery eyes dripping in living air.
Devon Neal is a Bardstown, KY resident who received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University and an MBA from The University of the Cumberlands. He currently works as a Human Resources Manager in Louisville, KY. His work has been featured in From the Depths and The Rye Whiskey Review, and is forthcoming in Moss Puppy Magazine, coalitionworks, Intangience Magazine, and Sage Cigarettes Magazine.