He offers her three bones as a form of compensation laying the nesting bird of her palm warm against his sternum’s slope, bones of sugar, bones of soap, so close to the flutter of shame at his throat this handful of her small hot bones to have, or keep, or hold – mineralized love, shot […]
Poetry 86
Josephine Yu: Postcard From the Sapelo River
It’s true, the weather is beautiful, cool enough for a sleeve, and almost cloudless, the wind rocking the warm planks of the dock where I play backgammon with my host and eat sandwiches in crustless triangles. After lunch I read on the porch, an afghan smoothed over my knees and a highball perched on a […]
Catherine Woodard: For Not Permitting a Man’s Heart to Be Taken From Him
In a nightmare I find my father’s captain At the kitchen table, hunched over, Big slobbery bites in the middle Of the night. His beard glows orange Like the cereal. He stares At the box, mesmerized by coupons. Milk dribbles out the left of his mouth. He does not invite me to sit down. I […]
Tony Tracy: The Stuff of Legend
It goes without saying I’m not the first alkie questioning his decision to go on the lamb. Dry days of courage, pills designed to regulate neuro-transmitters have failed miserably. Runner’s high, commitment to counsel’s verbage are what have kept me away, that and pilfered funds, early dispersals of 401K, notion that money spent, the […]
Tony Tracy: The Pitfalls of Evolution
My therapist sighs, swallows the weight of the moment, then clears his throat to ask, “Tony, what do you believe is the fate of mortality?” Careful not to own an opinion, a proof that might later be held against me, evidence submitted to discredit my possible petition in the highest and holiest of courts, a […]
Carolyn Stice: Ars Poetica
-I don’t know how the palm trees opened up my greedy heart. -Adam Zagajewski Evening is drawing to a close, and the baby who cannot yet crawl is shuffling herself across the quilt, defying the need for sleep. It’s 8, then 9, then 10 pm, and sometimes you think you’d like to shock […]