Sistine Notebooks: Death of Nicanor

one night we were camping it must have been the usual crowd up late & drinking the cheapest beers we could illegally buy laughing & telling stories we had all already heard pete & andy were in the truck listening to music & sharing a joint i remember when a blinding shine & hum appeared in the sky a beam of light swept through the clearing rendering the campfire dull & redundant stunning us all for a moment then zipping its hum off into the northern sky gone fast enough for andy to not have the time to jump from the truck in wonder to see what the hell was that we all just looked up at the sky rife with stars we talk about it sometimes when we get together pete & i we cannot  explain what we know happened with head shaking & dull wonder & we wonder aloud if it felt the same to andy when just a few years ago he ran head on into the lights of a semi heading south on hwy 93

Sistine Notebooks: Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac

dad would wake my brother & me to drive out to the desert in the bitter cold of idaho winter & sagebrush scabs of snow crusted on northfacing hillsides ryan and i huddled in a pile under a sheet of camouflage netting while dad called in coyotes to shoot for pelts & one time the biggest bitch i had ever seen was running hungry up the dell toward us & i became scared & made a small noise & she stopped hard scattering snow with her big paws not liking what she saw or smelled she broke into a run dad said shit & stood his whistle clear and visible in the cold air she paused for half a second to listen to this new sound & he leveled the .243 & dropped her the guns report sounding down the valley i remember her fur so like a dogs so soft

Jeremy Gregersen is a graduate of the Universities of Utah (BA), Michigan (MFA), and Oregon (MA). His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals. He lives in Las Vegas with his wife and two sons, works as Head of School at The Meadows School.

<             >