By: John L. Gronbeck-Tedesco (for Michael Newell) 1. In the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven, an old man dances lightly on the hood of his pick-up; sounds like overalls on a taut clothesline billowing softly in a generous breeze. He listens to his feet on metal. 2. And, he sees the August moon color of old blood— pain and beauty—luster over late season corn red summer wheat dark stemmed radish, and splinters of open prairie: shadows from gray, long-limbed Osa

By: Gerald Wagoner As a child I was at liberty to roam until we drove through a dry Montana blizzard into wind scoured wheat fields where oil derricks stood as lonely as guard towers. We drove through long Montana blizzards. Blind cattle, we plodded east, past lights grim as guard towers, dim in the night, hunted stark daybreaks sharp as knives. Blind cattle, we plod east past star lights from tiny towns warped in cat black ridges. We hunt stark daybreaks, with sharp knives.

By: J.R. Solonche I knew the man in charge of all the funerals at the NYPD. “How do you do it?” I asked him. “It’s my job. I’m in charge of all the funerals,” he said. “I understand. But how do you do it?” I said. “Isn’t this the life?” he said while looking at his pool. I looked at his pool. It was bluer than the sky. “Do you have a pool?” he said. Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY Orange, J.R. Solonche has published poetry in more than 500 magazines, journals, and antho

By: Ellen Skilton and start again from the beginning — this old cake from the back of the freezer has a rancid aftertaste, first made in a pre-reconstruction oven. I used to think the answer was finding better ingredients for the icing, but it’s a whole new cake we need with abolitionist-ground flour, reparations folded in a new genesis, a reckoning, a from-scratch remake. Those cakes in the windows of bakeries made of cardboard, glitter, and glue are make-believe monuments t

By: Geoffrey Himes In the Kingdom of Glass, the ending of all things happens again and again, like a body standing between two mirrors, each catastrophe smaller and more distant as it disappears into the past. In the Kingdom of Glass, the queen’s limousine has tinted windows, so she can see out and we can’t see in. The black car moves slowly through the throng like a cruise ship departing a Caribbean harbor. In the Kingdom of Glass, the kestrels and owls take different shifts

By: Benjamin Rose En route, the traffic was suddenly thin Down Mass and the bridge to Embassy Row. We passed the Turkish government-run mosque, Passed the statues of Nelson Mandela And Winston Churchill in bronze and in stone Or whatever stuff from whence they were raised I cannot guess, and said nothing at all. I scrolled the driver’s bio half-asleep. By accident, Rammstein began to play. My shoulder swam in your umbrageous curls That once electrified. Now, as though numb, T

By: Alfred Fournier for Roberta How we cut an X in the center, little wedges on the sides, so it wouldn’t balloon in the pan. Sound of it sizzling as we clattered in the kitchen, two kids, unattended. Dad pulling extra shifts at the plant. Mom in the hospital long-term by then. Teenaged sister distracted by blue-jean-jacketed boys. We didn’t mind, you and I, opening our imaginary restaurant: two patrons, two chefs. Once, you plucked violets and clover from the backy

By: Rohan Buettel This book is small, small enough to hide in my pocket. Thin leaves dense with print. Bright, bright as a red rocket when waved in the air, waved with one hundred thousand others. The title and a five- pointed star impressed in gold into a plastic cover. Gold to make the title stand out bold. In the front a picture of the great man, protected by a rice-paper leaf, mole prominent on his chin. Almost smiling, but then the hard, coal black eyes. I remember a fif

By: John Dorroh after Dorianne Laux The white tiling in the guest bathroom. The stainless steel toaster by the fridge. A clay pot full of golden lantania. My ulna. Aunt Sarah’s outlook on life. The rickety seating in the Lory Theatre. My bicycle’s brakes. Uncle Jim’s BBQ grill. Long ago, my mother’s favorite casserole dish. The swing under the old oak tree at Panther Lake. The rusted latch on the back door of the barn. Just yesterday, the leak under the sink in the

By: Mike Cole Think of the side of a mountain that was burned down to dirt and bare rock and then bathed here and there in cast off crankcase oil and scattered with the carcasses of tires and the shredded body parts of wrecks before the manzanita and buck brush grew there again, were again incinerated in an inferno that made its own blow torch of wind that melted metal and sent rubber swirling up in twisters of black dust, and now think of the same slope that seems from a dis

By: Julie Benesh The future’s a whale that doesn’t target us, particularly: drinks its ocean, filters needed nutrients, expels the rest. The biggest-eyed kitten’s a trained assassin, but even she can learn to mother a bird. We never blame the faster prey for starving the predator, and confuse the light of dawn with the end of days. What comes for us is nothing compared to what we do, ourselves, to ourselves, pulling every trigger. Julie Benesh is author of About Time, publish

By: Patrick T. Reardon Cost me voice box. Cost me black holes, greedy tunnels, another atom existence. Cost acne and lumps, lost cost. Cluster jazz. Cost inhale, exhale. An earthly dirtied dollar, sliced grass blade, squirrel carcass flat as a poem for reading on the asphalt street in front of the two-flat at 435 N. Thomas of Canterbury Boulevard, the gospel of need. Cost my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright. Cost lost. Effective. Of living. Of breathing. Cost of $5

By: Roxanne Noor Mental acrobatics a forward handspring into oblivion the derangement of the senses / a small leap of imagination where the unconscious and conscious have a dialogue sit down for a cup of tea in this nation of skewed images reality is a refraction of light to decipher the subconscious lilt a subtle pulse under all minor action the didgeridoo cannot play itself the human sculpts fellow man in his image of soot and clay the pregnant fruit does not know it is mad

By: Anne Kay Murphy I have this dream. I have this dream while waking While we talk on the phone, one Of us weeping. I have this dream: My fingers are in the brain of the world, And in my dream, I wrap your fate In gossamer strands like steel and Keep you suspended, safe, in my sight, My fingers, pinched tight with a tensile strength Unbelievable. I keep you somewhere safe, Suspended, tightly wound, in my sight. So I can suck you dry. Anne Kay Murphy lives in Washington D.C.,

By: Linda Drach That’s what they say, the friends who hear him bark when I leave for the gym or buy the wrong soap, the ones who glimpse the shit stains, who balk at the thought of so much toenail trimming. But how can they know? Martyrdom is not my calling. It’s just a sticky vat I fell into. My beloved is dying – and I fret about my fat and fuss over the dusting. My suffering beloved says he wants to kill himself and then we bicker about dinner. Each disagreement starts wit

By: Lina Buividaviciute Translated from Lithuanian to English by Irma Šlekyte. I’ve never seen it raising a revolver, ready for a slap of betrayal. I’ve never witnessed it tossing soil on a three-year old’s coffin, caressing an unloved one, writing the last letter, holding a hand of the one who’s departing. So, they say, I have no right to gather so much heaviness in my elbows and forearms. I have no right, they say, to not move my wrist bones. I know I have to move these arm