The Sunday Poet: Michael C. Keith

Michael C. Keith

Michael C. Keith is the author/coauthor of 30 book volumes and dozens of articles on the subject of radio and broadcast studies. In addition to his non-fiction titles, Keith has published over a dozen creative works, including an acclaimed memoir: The Next Better Place––a young adult novel: Life is Falling Sideways––and several short story collections: most recently Slow Train and Perspective Drifts Like a Log on a River. Mad Hat Press will publish his next story collection, Let Us Now Speak of Extinction. His fiction has been nominated for several awards, among them the Pen/O.Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, the National Indie Excellence Award, and the International Book Award. He is professor emeritus at Boston College.

After 


He’s deeply disturbed but has concealed that fact well enough to keep from drawing unwanted attention. He wonders what it is that has him clenching his fists and feeling the rise of his heartbeat? Is it the sudden darkness in the room or the icy air that seeps through a break in the windowpane that makes him so jumpy? He smells something, too, which puts him off . . . churns his stomach. A scent that rose from the freshly severed arm of an Afghan villager he rushed to aid as an army medic. Then there’s the rose-colored water that trickles onto his shoes as he slumps at the basin’s edge. Clare, he thinks, you shouldn’t have done it. His lover’s hand twitches in a postmortem spasm and he screams for her out of habit