Out the kettle, a whistle like a neigh escapes the red throat of a drunk horse, animal or man, alone, collapsed on the road, crying out with the last stone of strength, his voice a burning silver howling louder & louder & louder until his maker rushes to close the flame.
Contributors 90
Catherine Arturi Parilla: Bobbins Unwound
Singer, the thief, steals a dignity as its needle eye blinks and moves to fool the unsteady hand that attempts to thread it. The sway-back villain disrupts the flow of colorful threads, tampers with tension of the iron-latticed pedal, forcing a frail foot into a press-halt pace. This stitch robber stealthily unwinds: her bobbins, her […]
Dave Nielsen: Home Office
He sits down at his computer and opens a folder and discovers a folder he’d forgotten about and opens it and discovers another folder he doesn’t recognize and opens it and now a folder a sort of backup he remembers creating years ago and opens it and discovers a folder so deep inside the computer, […]
Kay Murphy: Undiagnosed Villanelle
I lie half-crazed on a cement bed, Temp 102. I’m on a grave, a table? The nurses make their rounds in shoes of lead, Rolling pcs, forms to sign, and my one med Until the virus has a label. I lie half-crazed on a cement bed. I want to tell them that I feel code […]
John McKernan: I Still Dial Old Phone Numbers Back in Omaha
My index finger punching in Jackson 3280 My father’s At his office downtown In the Farm Credit Building Thumb punching the cell phone 402.551,3080 My mother’s At our house on Cass Street Where I grew up staggering toward vodka Sometimes I’m drunk all day And dial wrong No one answers so I hang up Before […]
Warren Longmire: Ready Player One
How many cried when the avatar floats red across the monotone skyline? The mastered physics fluttering your fabric made of math? You might. When thumbstick millimeter becomes a gait toward simulated sun. The moment tutorial is a muscle memory. When pausing could kill a world. When the orchestration echoes you and swells like a gland would. Congratulations! […]