By Mario Alejandro Ariza
Posted on
It is 1980 my father is high on cocaine.
He is a man unfaithful even to his own sadness.
–
(there was a machine I was involved in it it gave me a diamond I gave it the heart of a palm it thundered and groaned like a moss-covered god)
–
It is 1980
we are among
my wife’s dead
hanging flowers
and I am
Cocaine.…
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By Joe Sullivan
Posted on
I carry
clothing & food
downstairs
across the river
to another compartment
in the sky
an offshoot
a sequel
I lie
carrying still
anger waiting
an excavation in the future
on the bed you turn
glowing blue-lit
then
mouth wide open
face to the ceiling
mouth kissed by others
nameless
in dark places
I wonder
if we’d met at another time
would this be severed
could we laugh then
& throw each other
knowing glances
never touching
we would lie
at separate ends
of the sofa at the party
its end closing in
By Thomas HIggins
Posted on
they huddle in the doorway
of a dark abandoned building,
smoking what might
be a cigarette,
beneath shreds
of blankets
goodwill coats
and cardboard.
we pass as the light
moves on from red
to the green
of seaglass caught
in sun,
and they
do not watch
as we pass
from their lives
so freely,
as if there were
more
worlds than one.
By Sarah-Kathryn Bryan
Posted on
Sleep like it’s all beginning.
Let your body in.
Think of her fingers.
Pace your insides.
Sit under the tree.
Flicker like the end
of a chrysanthemum
firework. Climb that tetanus
nightmare playground equipment.
Laugh at the pigwolves. Laugh
at the elfhorses. Look
at me. Please remember.
Let the silence pass through.
Smell the woods, keep
Quiet sleep.
By Jessica Mehta
Posted on
For a year he cut the lawn, and I never
knew his last name. I had to ask
the neighbor in the yellow
house after he vanished, her roses
dormant witnesses in the dark. When I’d tried
in terrible Spanish to explain where to plant the lavender,
my macete stumbled out machete
and he’d laughed behind black
cheap glasses, said, Police, bad,
they don’t like it. Words fall out
clumsy, twisted, and his surname—
we only cared when he’d gone. Then,
it was knocks on doors, furtive
asks in the night. For a week I watched
the online detainee locator site,
made calls that never came back.
The neighbor patrolled his church, carried
back stories of an avocado orchard
outside Tancítaro,unravelling
acres of drug cartels with fuerte-slick lips
where his father-in-law was murdered
last month.…
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By Sandra Kolankiewicz
Posted on
First we’re asked if we want to change tables,
a free upgrade, the offer innocent
enough except we will find no Reward
Program exists. I don’t have to tell you
how many names I heard but remember
not one, instead recall the crow cocking
its head to look down at me from the dog
wood branch on the tree lawn, unusual
to see them perched so low unless they have
a reason, so I couldn’t listen, don’t
remember a word except the end was
the same, love just what some people feed on
before sending it away all confused
and feeling guilty for talking, thirst more
likely to keep you where you’re wanted than
a seat with a good view will make you move.
By Jeanna Paden
Posted on
85 degrees and dozing from the cough syrup
evening, too cool for the end of summer in the south
only one of us complains
where do we go from here
but back to where we always go?
the comfortable and the comforting
maybe it’s not so bad or the end
we’re here listening to frog songs
you can call mourning or jubilee
it doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the language
you’re lost in the pull of leaving light
maybe I’m just high from the rising tent of sleep
I tend to like endings
that hand over peace wrapped in swaddling
and ask me to walk gently
for as clumsy as I am
I do fall like feathers when I want to
I want to go gently
the sun, warm breeze
evening, 85 degrees