You’ve told me more about Saturday nights
than I want to know. Fridays were big at
our house: paycheck, bar, pan to the crown when
he came home swinging. The morning after
was like church a day early: guilt. Always
a headache in cast iron, no buses
but two cars in the driveway, a stack of
bills paid for during the week. By the fifth
day, he wanted to be a child again,
swagger like a teen inside a middle
aged paunch, expectations for life thwarted
by time and poor decisions, a father,
lost and overboard in a leaky
life boat, briefly sharing provisions while
eyeing the life preservers and the oars.
– Sandra Kolankiewicz… ...continue reading
Sitting still, waiting to descend
just a layer of fogged glass
keeping me from you.
Trees growing on your cheeks,
chin in your palm.
You’re frightened, I know.
Yet the sun splays on the dashboard and
you see the moose, as I do, swimming
in the pond—black berries along its shore.
Soon, the plane kisses the ground.
Something has left you.
– Preston Eagan… ...continue reading
I remember which way to go if I can face north
& close my eyes: at home, the Tillmans’ house
was north & stood in for the small dipper, somewhere
below the treeline. East was the city, too small
to light the sky orange or at all, the searchlights
from the airport probing nervously a clouded night,
saying please come home, so good to see you. West
was the back yard, over which my father launched
crude bottle rockets on summer nights, the best ones
making it to the cornfield past the property-line,
& we imagined them arcing over the barn, too,
burying their spent heads in the woods beyond.… ...continue reading
Tomorrow, when the Vulcan god of fire,
Rejects their offerings, she will burn with the rest of the city.
Tomorrow, when the wrath of gods pour into landfills and
The river boils, she will not get far on foot.
Tomorrow,
when the walls are breaking and
the air is sour with naked fear,
she will be one of a thousand deaths, slaughtered
under the mass of ash and pumice.
But today, she is alive and with her mother in the markets,
Clutching a stout baby. The sun is shining and they are shopping for the evening meal.
Pausing at the flower stand between the vendors of fishhooks
And cloth, the flower she lifts to her nose smelled sweeter than usual.
– Sarah Huang… ...continue reading
There are geese in the road
a monogamous pair protecting
five goslings from the onslaught
of morning traffic
like many families
they knit together in times of change
times of great movement
unbearable crisis
here they cross
Silicon Beach tenderly
bookending their nestlings
from the Metro we
know human urgency waits
for no one
least of all these. … ...continue reading
Born to order, off the fossil record, I may
have as many half-life crises as I like. The closing
question hypothetical, I aced my metaphysical
examination. Calibrated down, I’m dead to heaven
yet. While looking over my left shoulder I walk
backwards. I walk where the state of nature was.
While compensating for obliquity I convert every
moon-lit soft spot to a horizontal. To soft spots I
say, Go easy on the realism – realism is thin ice.
– Heikki Huotari
Author’s Note: “My Body Is My Canvas” is a manifestation of my current program of zooming in on the fractal boundary between what I see and what I think about what I see. In this case, what I saw was a YouTube video about an exercise fad in Japan, walking backwards, and what I thought I thought while trying it out myself.… ...continue reading
Eve at forty’s dissatisfied
with the shape of her hips
& having to correct the record—
the scratching out, the adding in.
If given her youth to live again,
she’d’ve covered up & found
a quiet corner of the garden
away from need & distraction,
away from the constant pummeling
rainbows & seedless grapes.
She’d wanted to be a mother,
but not the mother of all,
the butt of jokes, the fractured rib,
when it was merely a moment
of weakness & slight despair.
You, too, encounter moments
of weakness & slight despair,
when its easier simply to let go
& see what tomorrow brings.
There were no pills to halt
the onslaught, no backup plan.
God, she thinks, it was just a flash,
and then quite suddenly
she was denied ice cream forever
& lightning bugs & strolls in the park.… ...continue reading