Suddenly God is invisible and tells me to rule you. Yes, ok. The hero and the blood he carries. I’ve stayed in my room while my city floats into another city like cells multiplying. Love is mine, love’s debt is to me.
Contributors 89
Soren Stockman: Sound
Going without is the key to returning. Water smacks the glass and fills, the friction when I rub my sleeve up my arm. Of course, birds. Myself swallowing, and the refreshing ah after. Sinking into new sand. The cup put down on the table. Breathing. Still imagining the yellow moth’s wings lightly on air. Burning. […]
Janet Marie Sola: The Children
“Be careful,” says the guide, “be careful of the children.” I can hear their tiny fingers drumming against the hot metal of the car door. I can hear their child voices singing, “please madam, come out madam, madamadamadamadadamadamadamadama.” I push open the door against the weight of their bodies, and step into the sun. Then […]
Robert Siek: Grand Union
I walk the cereal aisle at Grand Union like a swivel-hipped marionette, hot for ground beef, thinking of Bonnie’s barbecue, the pool party, some half-naked man. Ignoring magnet frames and cork screws screaming “pluck me” from metal hook-on branches, doing the dash of in and out, passing through perfect as if Officer Lupo requested that […]
Elizabeth Scanlon: Clarion Canticle
Christmas came around the corner like a thug, it wanted my wallet or heart and didn’t care which. The trickling down my ribs reminded me of dear blond Lynch saying titsweat is the worst, and the wet wool at my pits made me feel bad for the sheep, who never imagined itself dyed crimson and […]
Theo Rossi: Object Study 1
Twice a night, once at twelve and once before, I used to whisper to the cow skull on the mantle of my home. (in his gentle bony ear): Please protect me from the frost snake (coldest death this side of Santa Fe) I slept with anise seeds tucked in my sleeves to clear my nightmares […]