Daniel I don’t use “step” as in “step forward” or worse “step back.” You are my bonus son the prize I never quite expected. Too old for bedtime stories when I married your mom let me tell one now: once upon a theatre in the middle of things they held onto your ticket torn in half movies had stages then and when the curtain fell with credits fading in its ripples a man would come and announce the lucky winner the bonus you are he and all the lights come up
Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, teaches Humanities at Nichols College, Dudley, MA. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His poetry chapbook, The Man Who Remembered Heaven, received the New Eden Award in 2003. His non-fiction When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now), subtitled Recovering the Lost Jewishness of Christianity with the Gospel of Mark, was published in 2006 by Cowley Publications. A novel The Retreatants, was published in 2012 (Smashwords). A chapbook, Christine Day, Love Poems, was published in 2016 (Kittatuck Press). His novella, Everything We Want, was published in 2018 by Bloodstone Press. A poetry collection, The Realm of Blessing, was published in 2020 by Unsolicited Press.
Amethyst Review 