The Drain of Habit



With a white apron cinching her waist a young woman in black leans against the courtyard door, watching the older couple at the table against the wall—his lips moving, teeth occasionally visible, her face in her hands. She never responds, never moves until the man stands, and with only the slightest of pause, a single tick, he walks out. She raises her head in his receding footsteps and looks at the young woman in black. Neither flinch, holding the other’s gaze, sharing an understanding (to be given their due) of how love seeps away.

 


 

Chella Courington (she/her) is a writer/teacher whose poetry and fiction appear in numerous anthologies and journals including DMQ Review, The Los Angeles Review, and New World Writing. A Pushcart and Best New Poets Nominee, Courington was raised in the Appalachian south and now lives in Central California. She has two recent microchaps of poetry—Good Trouble, Origami Poems Project, and Hell Hath, Maverick Duck Press.




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Good Trouble

Hell Hath

Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage

In Their Own Way







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