50 to 1

Charlotteville, Virginia – April 8, 1979 by Sheldon Lee Compton

There is the metal yelp of the trigger and the orchard is full of sound, the blasted cry of a misplaced native tangled and lost, the memories of his land as fathomless and unforgiving as the locked gates of heaven, his headdress bright as a cardinal’s wing.




Sheldon Lee Compton lives in eastern Kentucky. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Southerner, Boston Literary Magazine, Six Sentences, Zygote in My Coffee, The Beat, Cut-Thru Review and elsewhere.