Thursday, May 27, 2021

The Things the Devil Can Give You by Steve Passey

Love 
and light 
and rain 
but not rehabilitation, 
(and never another drink) 
but there is man who used to come here 
and he said he’d seen the devil come as a red-haired woman 
who must have been beautiful when she was younger, 
but she looked hard now. 
She brought another man drinking alone in a corner a newspaper 
and in that newspaper was the obituary of the man’s ex-wife. 
The devil, 
she led the guy out by the hand 
while he cried and laughed and then cried again,
and neither of them looked back. 
The devil can bring you love and light and rain 
but never another drink 
and shit man, it’s wearing her out too.

The End



Steve Passey is from Southern Alberta. He is the author of the collections Forty-Five Minutes of Unstoppable Rock (Tortoise Books), Cemetery Blackbirds (Secret History Books), the novella Starseed (Seventh Terrace) and many other, individual things.









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