Emily Skaja Elegy without a Single Tree I Can Save I’ve been standing all night in the woods near Necedah with your name etched in red on my tongue like a boxelder wing. Loss of life occurred at a specific hour, a certain day, we are told. No one was with you—how that weighs […]
Read More… from Emily Skaja, “Elegy without a Single Tree I Can Save” and “Elegy with Rabbits”
Kara Candito The Executioner’s Taking Off I would like just one season as polite as Wisconsin, like soaking forever in a hot bath while other people wage campaigns against assault weapons and capital punishment. One writes to ask if I’m ready for a fight. Another reminds me there are just twelve hours […]
Read More… from Kara Candito, “The Executioner’s Taking Off”
Sue William Silverman If the Girl Does Phone Sex Show me your bathroom faucet,I’ll show you my ripe pomegranate…I want to swallow your rice pudding and haveyou lick my pumpkin hollow.Bored, the girl filesfingernails painted the colorof commercial lust.Man after man,all night long, her brain spinsa different scriptfrom pouty lips. She doubtsany of her […]
Read More… from Sue William Silverman – “If the Girl Does Phone Sex”
Michael Bazzett Tongues Most people can already speakhurricane, given that it’s mostly howling rage and shares numerouscognates with the mother tongue. But sunlightis a quiet dialect where every word soundsalmost the same to the untuned eye. It is nativeonly to the green leavesthat devour it whole. ~ Michael Bazzett’s work has […]
Brian Clifton from The Introvert’s Guide to Dreams You stroke your daughter’s hair and pass over a lump in the center of her head. You brush her hair away to reveal her nose, her opened mouth. She inhales. You’ve made a tragic mistake. In go the flies that hung around the dark corners of […]
Read More… from Brian Clifton, “from The Introvert’s Guide to Dreams”
Brian D. Morrison A History of the Forklift It isn’t a quiet story, the forklift’s, but it carriesintermittent calm, idle between shifts at the factory,not revving or pivoting. Until the driver, who knows the sounds sparks make in gas-poweredengines, like the sounds driven through the necksof rifles before the louder bangs, ignites it. He […]
Read More… from Brian D. Morrison, “A History of the Forklift” and “A History of Pigs”
Caitlin Scarano Scatter Begin with a man match that grows into a girlwhen struck. Oval flame. Face like her father’swith eyes that do not startle. A seething center blue hot as the girl I foundbeneath the surface when I shed my skinthat nineteenth year. When I said I will have no more of this: […]
Hieu Minh Nguyen White Boy Time Machine: Safety Tips i understand no one / wants to be remembered / at their twenty-year high school reunion / as the guy who cut off the tips of his fingers / trying to dissect a fetal pig / i really wish i could help / everyone / […]
Karyna McGlynn Costumes Required A chocolate-bartering devil skimsinto the Halloween party uninvited& undeterred. I think: that manwill pluck something from me. Granite counters, laminate floors,ten guys named Steve who onlytalk to each other. Me doingmy best Sally Bowles act again— Wearing little more than a wig,a tuxedo vest & a good sweat,I catch my […]
Read More… from Karyna McGlynn, “Costumes Required” and “Sensual Vocabulary”
Sean Thomas Dougherty Portrait of Lebron as Ohio When is a poem one word? Even at 17 he was Baraka on the court, Coltrane gold toned, a kind of running riff,more than boy-child, man-child, he was one word like Prince. How back in those drunken days when I stillran in bars & played […]
Read More… from Sean Thomas Dougherty, “Portrait of Lebron as Ohio”
