THE CONJUGAL VISIT

by Bryan D. Price

I was making paper airplanes when you walked in. I saw a guy flying them in the park
once and it seemed like something I could do to pass the time. He made and threw about forty of them and on each one he wrote the words: please kill me. The park is a strange place to meet men. Or a great place to meet strange men. He touched a lit Winston Ultra Light to each wing tip and just like that his demons were exorcised. Some lives make sense only in retrospect.

Bryan D. Price is the author of A Plea for Secular Gods: Elegies (What Books, 2023) His stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Noon Annual, New Letters, The Glacier, Boulevard, and elsewhere. He lives in San Diego, California.