It seems the job of the writer is to have two jobs. The combinations are limitless. One of my favorite examples of this dual-life trade is writer/undertaker Thomas P. Lynch. Some of us sling cocktails for financial support while supporting the vices of those who might in return support us for epiphany and material. But the life of the writer/undertaker is an interesting one indeed. Lynch pulls from his work with the dead, and he does it well.

Here is a poem from his upcoming book, The Sin Eater: A Breviary (Paraclete Press, September 1, 2011).

He Posits Certain Mysteries

by Thomas P. Lynch

The body of the boy who took his flight
off the cliff at Kilcloher into the sea
was hauled up by curragh-men, out at first light
fishing mackerel in the estuary.
“No requiem or rosary” said the priest,
“nor consecrated ground for burial,”
as if the boy had flown outside the pale
of mercy or redemption or God’s love.
“Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
quoth Argyle to the corpse’s people,
who heard in what he said a sort of riddle,
as if he meant their coreligionists
and not their sodden, sadly broken boy.
Either way, they took some comfort in it
and readied better than accustomed fare
of food and spirits; by their own reckoning:
the greater sin, the greater so the toll.
But Argyle refused their shilling coin
and helped them build a box and dig a grave.
“Your boy’s no profligate or prodigal,”
he said, “only a wounded pilgrim like us all.
What say his leaping was a leap of faith,
into his father’s beckoning embrace?”
They killed no fatted calf. They filled the hole.

_________________________________

Scott McClanahan is the author of STORIES, STORIES II (published by Six Gallery Press) and STORIES V! (published by Holler Presents). He lives in West Virginia.

We get that he acted like a dick, Mark, but come on, man! He’s the Commander-in-Chief for God’s sake! Anyways, we heard about the suspension, so here are a few yarns to keep you occupied. Next time, remember: don’t ever rely on seven-second delays. Unlike these stories, those will always let you down.

– I swiveled in the other direction and took in the immense sectionals. I’d walked past them to get here. They loomed larger than my living space, and all had women’s names affixed to them: Lola, Thelma, Jenna, Lily, Stella, Simone, Catherine, Scarlet. None of them had my name. — Emily Schultz in At Length

– Lala’s on her phone, arguing with her mom in Korean. I’m in the passenger seat, breaking up bud on an Abnormal Psychology textbook, a class I think Lala flunked out of. — Lacey Martinez in Pitbull Magazine

– Chicanos, he says, gangs, Norteños. I kind of just zone-out listening to him. Maybe he’s right, but I’m worried he’s going to say something really messed up and the people around the bar will hear it and think I’m with him. I get the bartender’s attention. Same girl from the other day. — David Como in THIS Literary Magazine

– A talking woman was on the screen but they couldn’t hear what she was saying because Delores had turned the sound down. The woman’s hair was like a bubble that encased her head, with a large curl exactly in the center of her forehead. — Allen Kopp in /One/

– Blinded by headlight filaments, smell wet heat beating off motor, see driver open-eyed through windscreen condensation. Tyrespray soaks clothes; shutting it out and turning away, prepare your bones. Unbearable roar, and here it comes, now, the death blow, now! now… — Allen Gillespie in The Waterhouse Review