William Hicks __________ Not Old Yet but I look at the barista’s skincovered shoulder to fingertipin intricate figures of bones, decay, drooping rosesand I wonder what tattoo I would have gotten at her ageand what five years after thatand what six months laterand what when I got married/engaged/hired/fired/drunkand if I…
Read MoreNative Lands Benjamin Goluboff __________ There’s a place where the north branch of the Chicago Riverbends around a little island and turns hard south. There’s condos on the west side and Forest Preserve to the east.The woods in between, the riverbanks and the little island are all blanketed with the…
Read MoreDisappointment, Blue, 1982 CJ Giroux __________ Blue is the color of your best friend’s Honors Chemistry textbook when you got placed in what everyone knew was Biology for Dummies. In the dissection unit on a late spring Friday, it’s the fetal veins wandering like the Big Two-Hearted; you weren’t invited…
Read MoreJo Angela Edwins __________ Vignette The girl at the bus stop faces her boyfriendwho stands one foot to the side, his faceturned so he’ll catch first glimpse of the buswhen it rounds the distant corner. She slips her handsin the pockets of his jacket, the sharp windsthis morning the coldest…
Read MoreLaine Derr __________ A Golden Red Oncea lankyboy, Ihungfroma tree,cherriesshiningw/ love. __________ Inheritance Like my motherI learned to cryin a car, behinda wheel, a childin the back seatsinging along – songs we learnto forget, but Irefuse to followthe ones, notesblue and yellow,green or red, who believe in horizon,a boundary of…
Read MoreTroy Coll __________ Whirlpool My first memory of dirt is the griton the slick plastic floor of Maw Maw’sabove-ground pool. Too smallto swim, I hold my breath and sink crouch leapI break the blue meniscusto the smell of cut grasscharcoal and Virginia Slims. I inch along the rail as the…
Read MoreAugust Helpling __________ Family Name Glinting with sweat and glitter from the club dance floor,a friend sits across from me at the diner and says,I’m nonbinary, but I don’t think I can call myself trans,it feels like I haven’t earned it. How I delightthen to tell the tale of the…
Read MoreGage Baldwin __________ Invisible Countries Words don’t live long outside the body,Not most of them, anyway. I can tell who is family By the tension behind their teeth The hesitance in their step Like a sinner sneaking back Amongst the gods. Do not believeTheir honeyed Words, let them hang In the air and die. We…
Read MoreJoe Bishop __________ Vacancy This grand hotel has lost its headand the maids march on strike for hazard paycircling parking-lot sinkholes Anarchy overthrew the maître d’Light & Power cut lights and powerThe star rating slips by the hourBaroque wallpaper peels like stage makeup Chef pisses in the soup du jourHis duck a…
Read MoreDustin Brookshire __________ Drifting Villanelle a collaborative, contoured villanelle using W.H. Auden’s “If I Could Tell You”,written with Joshua Barnes Tomorrow is Monday. Say it ain’t so!But there are, unfortunately, bills to payand so much in this world that I don’t know. I could tell you; instead, let me showhow…
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