She spun and he hurled the daggers like always. Except tonight something was different. This morning she’d withdrawn the balance from her bank account; purchased train fare, hair dye, and a new pair of walking shoes; freed her canary. Stowed behind a dumpster, her luggage waited. She hadn’t packed the makeup, needing it no longer. But all was contingent upon her performance, convincing him nothing was amiss. Chunk the blade landed inches from her cheek. Watching him closely, it was difficult to detect anything off. His mien was opaque, that of a sphinx.

extinction rumors
greatly exaggerated
devil fish

Jerome Berglund,

a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program, spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the Midwest where he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. He has many haiku, tanka, and haibun exhibited and forthcoming online and in print, most recently in Bottle Rockets, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Ribbons, Seashores, and Trash Panda. His work was recently nominated for the Touchstone Awards and the Pushcart Prize.

Jerome’s first full-length collections of poetry, Bathtub Poems: drum beats on a typewriter and Funny Pages, were released this year, respectively, by Setu (March 2023) and Meat For Tea Press (May 2023).

Blog (Jerome Berglund - Photographer)