by Samantha Duncan what if a machine could water our plants sing our child to sleep travel to ‘96 and say the shitty thing to the boy who said the shitty thing first what a time to transfer our makeup to another’s pillowcase after dinner and three episodes and protest signs made with a shared
by Jonathan Fletcher Though nearly thirty, I turn back into a six-year-old boy on the corner of your bed. I’m still afraid of the dark. I need a nightlight, my mother’s pats atop my back, before I can fall asleep. I ask you to leave the lights bright. With annoyance, you dim the room, remind
by VA Smith Watch me bathe myself in the coolblues, grays, and sages of the livingroom I have filled with mutedleathers, nubby, Klee-esque rugs,Carrara marble poured over manteland counter. When his stainless-steel bowl fliesinto the refrigerator, bounces coleslaw across the floor, confettiscabinets with cabbage, my eyesclose to Yo Yo Ma bowing Bach’sCello Sonata in G Minor Prelude,open
by Laura Goldin After an earlier incident your brain is running with delays in both directions. For alternative service between thought patterns, please exit your head at the approaching paradigm shift. Curtsying begins with you and makes a better ride for everyone. Consider giving ground to pregnant and disgruntled persons, bearing in mind that not
by Charles Rammelkamp Who invented the striptease? The performance goes back to ancient Babylonia, but the term was first used in 1932. Hinda Wassau, the 1920’s burlesque star, claimed to have invented the striptease when, as a chorus girl, her dress snapped and the audience went wild. Billy Rose recruited Hinda in the 1930’s. “The
by Gerard Sarnat In Chicago before I was toddling and my parents weren’t poor any more, when Zeyde died, we lived with Bubbe up three flights of stairs. She was always there, staring off in the distance, or on the floor feeding maches herring to fatten me up, or spoiling her boychick on dill pickles
by Katherine M. Gotthardt I wrote this poem because I saw defenestration in a WWII detective novel and had to look it up. That’s after thinking “I’d love to toss him out the window,” then remembered the old joke about tossing a watch to see time fly. It’s no one liner, but timing – o
by Nicholas Johnson Rusted, abandoned in the upstate woods, the red flatbed obviously used for target practice. Shot full of holes, looks real good against this tree. Abused after the crash, gutted, left to rot, dirt in the back became a bed for flowers, weeds, trees grown in the wrong place. Doesn’t hurt to take
Winter 2023 Dedicated to Nicholas Johnson and Maureen Holm, co-founders of BigCityLit Flatbed Truck by Nicholas Johnson Poetry Fiction Nonfiction Reviews