No One Left to Cry

One rose up and caught fire, the flame burning fast and then burning out. Another disintegrated in the street, not a trace left, not even ash. Another dropped dead standing in a mirage of a fountain, jetting blue and red streams of water, the blue basin filled with coins. One melted into a gold puddle, and another burst like a swollen grape, and another stepped off a cliff and hung for a moment above the gorge as though time had stopped. Another dug a grave and climbed in, happy to live in the earth. Another folded hands and became a prayer. Another set the clock of the heart, and the heart vibrated like a digital timer and then stopped. Now they were all gone, and the rain fell in thick, hard drops beating down the dust.

Jeff Friedman’s eleventh book, Broken Signals was published by Bamboo Dart Press in 2024. Friedman’s poems and microfictions have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Fiction International, Poetry International, Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, Smokelong Quarterly, Flash Fiction Funny, Wigleaf, 100-word Story, Plume, Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Anthology, New England Review, Hotel Amerika, Rattle, Hole in the Head Review, DMQ Review, Antioch Review, Best Microfiction 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026, and The New Republic. He has received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship and numerous other awards. https://www.facebook.com/poetjefffriedman