Story of a Pilgrim

PETER GRANDBOIS

Like many stories, this begins with night, with body as ghost and ceiling fan as stranger. It begins with the haunting of sheets and the scratching of the shapeless thing inside from which there’s no escape. And so you stack pillows on one side and then the other, you kick and claw at memory wandering like a lost child, like a breath beside you in the dark, eyes open to the faint light falling through the window exposing the requiem of cracks. When to cease the struggle and accept the quiet riddle of silence. And when to wake, as if like many stories, this begins with night.

Peter Grandbois is the author of eleven books, the most recent of which is the poetry collection The Three-Legged World, published as Triptych with books by James McCorkle and Robert Miltner (Etruscan 2020). His work has appeared in over one hundred journals, including The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Prairie Schooner. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com.