by George Perreault a palindrome it’s called a tick tock keeping time or is that something else you know an hourglass is worse than swirl when just an empty skull remains i walk and walk and seems any trail will take me home or strangers point the way though standing on the cliff a spray
by Jim Tilley I’ve been thinking of you, and I’ve been thinking about graphs, those mathematical objects composed of lines joining one point to the next. You’ve been showing me points in your life connected to other points, happenings that, taken together, define who you are, as if you could possibly be defined at all—
by Nicholas Johnson Flights to elsewhere are more necessary now that awakening itself is setback after setback as the mutual news sinks through: We both look through a single window after all. The view is bricked and bricked and capped by towers pushing back the sky. The more trustworthy, perhaps, can hold their tongues, but
by Michael Passafiume We were in your red van on our way upstate to another Miracle Legion show because they were the fucking coolest band & only you & I knew that & you were trying to tell me something. We were having a picnic at Beethoven Park & god, I was wearing those stupid
by Susana H. Case I was nineteen in Ohio. Mornings, the phone rang with my assignment. I’d run down the hill to catch the bus— a different school most mornings— clutching a bag of M&M’s for lunch. Principals said, just keep the students quiet. Poor Maurice—same size as me, but mentally a six-year-old—all deficits and
by Pamela L. Laskin Going to grow a gorgeous garden with wisteria blooming between begonias and roses ripe with longing. I had the seeds, the soil. All was ripe for blossoming. even the way I measured the distance between where the seeds were planted. How could I have known the heat was venomous, the waters
by John Reed You and I are everywhere but here. Down on Gansevoort at the swanky bar, the cherrystone clams are ready for us, on ice on a platter, on the half shell– and the sprinklers time-on at the great lawn– and an orange skirt is somewhere walking– and drivers are adjusting their mirrors. We’re
by Barry Wallenstein Passing by a mirror, he pays no attention and gazes in the other direction. He pushes forward without looking back. It’s enough to know it’s there he thinks; placing one small thought behind another, he banishes envy, spite, rancor and courts a breeze on its way across a field of heather. Well
by CL Bledsoe I’ve died here before. I’ve died here and kept stumbling toward that place where everyone is safe. I’ve seen it on tee-shirts. I hear helicopters, but they aren’t for me. You were the only way I could rise. Don’t leave me with the moon for my only friend. It’s cold and they