Colette Parris

Leak

Not the kind that buckles ceilings, triggers frantic dead-of-night calls to unlicensed plumbers, makes you beg for highway robbery so long as the robber comes quickly and takes checks. Not the type discussed slyly in commercials starring well-groomed white women of indeterminate age wearing pastel Capris, accompanied (in real life) by sharp cramps of mortification as you scurry, jacket—if you’re lucky—around your waist, towards dry clothing. More akin to the slow, lazy dribbles of air from tires that collide with potholes, nuisances that persisted and prospered despite countless letters to City Hall. But substitute hope for air. Replace tire with heart. Do not waste money on repair efforts. Any patch will be useless. 

Colette Parris                            

Colette Parris is a Caribbean-American recovering attorney who returned to her literary roots during the pandemic. Her fiction can be found in Cleaver Magazine, Streetlight Magazine, Lunch Ticket, and other journals, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize as well as Best Microfiction. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Healing Muse, BigCityLit, Thin Air Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Westchester County, New York. Find her on Twitter @colettepjd.