Evening on the Porch

by Vincent Casaregola

He sat on the bottom of the two front porch steps, watching and listening. The cement felt damp and cold under his worn walking shorts.

Officers were walking back and forth in the street out front, bending down to place yellow markers on the asphalt, each resting by a shell casing. The casings were scattered randomly, like seeds or pollen.

The bright red and blue lights made him squint, but above them, and above the roofs, he saw the western sky darkening.

Mentally, he counted the times before, then he added this one to the list.

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Vincent Casaregola teaches American literature and film, creative writing, rhetorical studies, and composition at Saint Louis University. Recently, he has published poetry in a number of journals, including The Bellevue Literary Review, The Examined Life, Natural Bridge, WLA, Dappled Things, 2River, Work, Lifelines, and Blood and Thunder. Some time ago, he had published creative nonfiction in New Letters and The North American Review.