CARY ZITER ~ Send Off

SEND OFF standing back in darker shadowsso i cannot see – she gives methe middle finger – in front of mesnowy mountains, a lonely road –the endless empty sky.

N.T. Chambers ~ A Walk Along Forever

A Walk Along Forever

Avra Elliott ~ Undiagnosed Discomfort

Undiagnosed Discomfort Asked if I still keep doves, I recall I once did, but like the petals of down they shed, I’ve lost their names, markings, the number of bodies I held in my palm, fed capsules of bread I’d rolled between thumb and finger, til my mother set them free, out of feelings of […]

Alex Scarborough ~ ghost ride the whip

ghost ride the whip another house party hosted by whatsherface another lacklustre Saturday chauffeuring you around rooms of architecturally handsome faces but tonight I’m cloaked each word I utter is a haunting met with a second-sucking startle before being relegated to the conversation’s footnotes so I saunter between gossiping huddles like a watermark on the […]

JEFF TOBIN ~ You Called It Amateur

You Called It Amateur You sat at the end of the long table, spine slouched in triumph, flicking through the workshop packet like it was catalog junk mail— and when you landed on her poem, the one about the jar of buttons she found in her dead mother’s drawer, you smiled that lazy, sideways smile, […]

PENNY NOLTE ~ REFLECTION

Reflection When I was in the hospital I was five years old and With another little girl Next door We talked And laughed Just knowing She was there I felt better My mother says I had a private room But there may have been a mirror

Storm Ainsely ~ REAL HAIR

Real Hair The black man who stopped, said “Forgive me, but you have real hair I don’t see that often & it’s beautiful” I had it up in twin tails, how I learned to wear my mask, so the loops would go over my hair & not my ears didn’t say it till he saw it from the […]

FEELZ TRIP ~ Tim Staley

Feelz Trip I got tired of pushing sublime at my students. William Cowper, Lord Byron, James Thomson, Samuel Rogers?! Let’s just say those old boys weren’t hitting under the busted-up ceiling panels and flickering fluorescent lights of my classroom. My students were squirming in the hard plastic cells of their desks, so I decided to […]

Michael Ashley ~ Holed up in a filthy duvet

Holed up in a filthy duvet tightly bundled upwith the TV mutedscrolling YouTube shortstrying to escape the shameof not being able to remember getting homehow do you purge itis it enough to sweat it outmaybe I should go sit in a boxand tell the Fatherfingers grasping at the rosariesdirty words reverberating fromthe walnut panelling or perhaps […]

Matt Thomas ~ COW CREEK

Cow Creek What we called a crick,no wider than a standing leapone side to the other,a rat snake stretched in pasture sun,kinks shear as paper cuts wherethe water fought to go straight.We flipped cow pattieswith pocket knivesfor worms that writhedon hooks bouncedwith a neat underhandfrom grass into the waterupstream from a bend, floatedto where we […]

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