Spark Jed Myers __________ Restless at night, I stepped outon the deck. High in the blackbetween a blink and the next, a brightorange speck streaked left-to-right on an earthward slant.It burned out before it could reachthe treetops, before I could thinktwo words for it—tiny torch, match struck and unlitso quick,…
Read MoreGirl Who Came Guns aBlazin’ Kennedy Dawn Stearns __________ Mama always said nothing made more of a ruckus than Kurt and I running down the tin steps leading up to her lone trailer with our canteens strapped to our belt loops knocking against our bodies. We were all bones then…
Read MoreBirds Without Music Christopher Locke __________ 5,000 red-winged blackbirdsrain unbidden from an Arkansassky like trench coats shot to pieces,streets and lawns ankle-deep in littlebodies. A white-crested laughingthrush bloated under a scrim of wastewater at the Miami Zoo, its blackstreak across the eyes like an homageto Annie Lennox until I reconsider,sure…
Read MoreNo Limits David Subacchi __________ What use dry stonesdug from hard soilto be piled one on another.Sheep pay little attention. They observe no limits.We mark wooland clip earsfor convenience. But they go where they willclambering overall obstructionson empty hillsides. Bleating their protestsweaker than birdsongor the humof passing traffic. Why speak…
Read MoreMy Plastic Dreams Mark Budman __________ Once, in the past or future, but definitely not in the present, I worked as a transportation minister for a friendly dictator, whose name was neither Hitler, nor Stalin, nor Kim Jong-Un, but whose mustache was toothbrush, whose smile was sardonic to the point…
Read MoreElegy for the Ignorance of Nudity Originally published in Bateau Literary Magazine Kristina Martino __________ To put things in perspective, the cosmos is commonplace,comprising a similar politics of implosions and cease-fires and expansion. As such, the earth is a placard that defaces the grandscale and I live there and so…
Read MoreThe Problem With Amy Winehouse John Vieira __________ Some days I find myselfmissing everyone I’veever known, I’m sorry.I offer them my mistakesas recompense.An indicator of how hardyou were hitis not necessarilythe colors of your bruise.like two spread legspointing to the future,there are many waysto be broken says the bone. __________…
Read MoreThis Morning Jess Williard __________ Muffled grind of snow plows, squirrels chirpingof discovered warmth in the walls of the house. White-packed lawns have already inflatedthe day. How open it is patterned to be filled in with cold light. How without repose. What thingsI could scare enough to crawl inside me.…
Read MoreAn Exercise in Staring at the Ceiling and Contemplating Divorce P.L. Sanchez __________ Focus on the fan. Watch the blades, spinning in circles. They want us to believe they’re an army. Smart. We know it’s a covert operation, a five-blade job. Those blades can spin, yes, they can. Focus on…
Read MoreJen Karetnick __________ Marching Band Perp Walk You never forget the way you’re taught to tread: Gaze straight ahead. Limbs on alert. Feet barely lifted, a watery shuffle. Toe to heel, toe to heel, a needle through the arch, threading the seams of the path in front of you like…
Read More