David Estringel
Watering the pink oleander outside my front door, I spy the neighbor’s dog—small, scrappy, and brown—scrying the iridescent skin of a water puddle at the foot of my drive for answers. Lost in murky swirls of pinks, blues, and greens that stretch and pull like morning yawns, it cocks its head, shoots me a stare, then crawls under my car—tail curled under its furless belly--for an afternoon nap. The sun, beating down, angrily, my head swimming in the chemical smell of the garden hose, I hear the call of cold, gray bedsheets and lightbulbs inside. “Good boy,” I think to myself, our eyes growing heavier with drowsy sleep. “Maybe tomorrow.”
David Estringel is a Xicanx writer/poet with works published in literary publications, such as The Opiate, Azahares, Cephalorpress, Lahar, Poetry Ni, DREICH, Somos En Escrito, Ethel, The Milk House, Beir Bua Journal, and The Blue Nib. His first collection of poetry and short fiction Indelible Fingerprints was published April 2019, followed Blood Honey and Cold Comfort House in 2022. David has written five poetry chapbooks, Punctures (2019), PeripherieS (2020), Eating Pears on the Rooftop (2022), as well as Golden Calves and Blue (coming 2023). His new book of micro poetry little punctures will be released in December 2022. Connect with David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidaestringel.com.