David W. Berner

David Berner is the author of several books of personal narrative and fiction. His work has been honored by the Society fo Midland Authors, the Chicago Writers Association, the Eric Hoffer Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and others. He was the Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project and the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home.

Desert Venus

From this distance, he’s not easy to see. Not with the naked eye. He’s old. I know that’s true. How old, I don’t know. He sits there on a beat-up couch on the porch, a big porch that wraps around part of the house and has screens on the sides to keep the bugs out. But it can’t do that too well if it’s just on the sides. I see him use his hand to swat away the eye gnats. They can be irritating late on a warm desert evening.

Issue 77, September 2023

David W. Berner

David Berner is the author of several books of personal narrative and fiction. His work has been honored by the Society fo Midland Authors, the Chicago Writers Association, the Eric Hoffer Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and others. He was the Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project and the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home.

Desert Venus

From this distance, he’s not easy to see. Not with the naked eye. He’s old. I know that’s true. How old, I don’t know. He sits there on a beat-up couch on the porch, a big porch that wraps around part of the house and has screens on the sides to keep the bugs out. But it can’t do that too well if it’s just on the sides. I see him use his hand to swat away the eye gnats. They can be irritating late on a warm desert evening.

Issue 77, September 2023

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