Sue and Jack shared a Valentine’s dinner.
Jack only drank a tall glass of red wine.
Sue tried to make some light conversation.
Jack hardly opened his mouth, just mumbled.
Sue shrugged all of this off. Silence was strength.
She adored Jack’s face. His eyes transfixed her.
Jack intrigued Sue, though she didn’t know why.
She resolved to bring him home for the night.
They plopped down on Sue’s couch. Jack dimmed the lights.
A long night of cuddling quickly ensued.
Then came Jack’s hickey. Sue’s world stood still.
She wondered if he took more than gave.
Abruptly at dawn, Jack rushed out the door,
leaving Sue a throbbing pain in the neck.
Sue had suspected this fling wouldn’t last.
She didn’t know the dead travel fast.
Gary Davis enjoys exercising his imagination through crafting dark and darkly humorous haiku and other forms of poetry. In a given poem, he likes to combine narrative, emotion, and image in an unsettling tapestry with hopefully a twist at the end. Mr. Davis has published poetry in Tales from the Moonlit Path, Scifaikuest, Star*Lines, Tales of the Talisman, Bloodbond, Illumen, Spaceports & Spidersilk, It Came from Her Purse, Potter’s Field, The Hungur Chronicles, and a sci-fi anthology, Kepler’s Cowboys (2014 – 2026).
Published 2/14/26