fifteen years

sunday morning mr pembrooke wakes up in a bed next to a woman for the first time in fifteen years and he goes downstairs and makes breakfast for a woman for the first time in fifteen years and he thinks about the lectures his father used to give him about sex before marriage for the first time in fifteen years and he puts the coffee on the table next to the halved grapefruits and toast dripping with marmalade and soft boiled eggs and four strawberries each for the first time in fifteen years and he opens the newspaper and listens to the sounds of a house that is not empty and it is so different from the sounds of one that is and he decides that this morning he shall do his sunday morning crossword puzzle in pen.

John Brantingham is the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and my work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and in The Best Small Fictions 2016. He has eight books of poetry and fiction including The Green of Sunset from Moon Tide Press, and he teaches at Mt. San Antonio College.

The punctuation of this story is intentional.