This morning I turned on myself. In the woods I called my leg. “Don’t go. At least not far. Stay to the left of me if not with me.” But I felt it go as I talked about throwing away the newspapers, eating the fish that landed on the table, and what to do when […]
Contributors 79
James Cihlar: Twin Cities
This city park sign tells me Land that once was the highest point Is now the lowest, Just as where there once were trees There now are lakes, And in a corresponding spot across the river, Where there once were lakes, There now are trees. Curtainless windows at night Show the clear-cut inscapes Of once […]
Steven Tarlow: Teaticket Road
The retarded boy leered at us all summer from his tricycle. He wouldn’t leave us alone. We feared him for this persistence and for his soft gray teeth; we loved him for the smell he carried of summer rain. As soon as we saw him, leaves of rain seemed to spatter the ground. Their underside […]
Noel Sikorski: Eczema
The allergies have taken my older brother’s body. At 5’11, Chris is a hundred and thirty pounds of inflamed epidermis. Everyday, for months, he scratches until blood and skin pucker into hard helmets of scabs, crafted to be pulled off. Culpability, here, is obvious. The specialist warns us to watch his diet and gives a […]
Sam Ruddick: Details I
I want a woman who broods, Throws things, cries black eyeliner. The biggest eyes you’ve ever seen, She’s anorexic, in a coffee shop. She hates me, She yells and hits When she gets fired Or someone she doesn’t know dies And she wants to pretend It’s important.
Ghita Orth: Roman Busts
Aging ourselves, we’d come to check out ruins, not these heavy-breasted women preening their slow pasaggios past our table at the Gran Caffe. Rome is about decrepitude and ancients – all that grey fractured marble, those pocked ranks of sculpted heads, might prove across accumulating years old isn’t all that bad. But now this affront […]