The Balcony by Paul Ferrell

                      ​Gypsy and The Fool CC



The Balcony 
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The attempt to maintain a surface of calm is more frightening than the rest when your voice sounds like rain splitting the sky inside of your throat and your stomach is a sea floor smeared with halcyon and pearl. 

The guests gather on the balcony to watch as she threatens to jump. Hearts without hinges. Crying made you the verb you were not. 

“Nurse, pass the gasoline.”
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She explodes all over the street below because no one likes the answers. Because no one cleans up after themselves. Because people talk to each other as if they’re in a court room. On a stage. On a talk show. Because we are buckets of oil spewed from some dead lady you heard about.

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Paul Ferrell is a comic in Las Vegas. His poems have appeared in Pank, The Sand Journal and Jet Fuel Review. He can be seen performing weekly in his bathtub dressed in nothing but fear and nipple tassle

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