A.M. Brant __________ Mermaid Glisten, water glow, on tailof scales of gold. Siren songrising over the mountaintoptown. Candle woman sun up.She is calling to you. Can you hearher song? She is dancing on the Ohio,her arms open, her breasts open,eyes open, mouth loud. She is callingto you, listen now. She…
Read MoreHappiness in the Face of Bipolar Disorder Sean L Corbin __________ And you worry that this warmth you feel on your shouldersthis undeniable fullness in the crook of your arm this dusted-off upward bend at the corner of your mouth you worry that thisis merely an imaginary friend pushing your…
Read MoreHappy Anniversary, Darling Mary Hanrahan __________ In the beginning there was flight, A clear blue owning the horizon. And within, _____a V of geese, an arrow determined to head in the same direction. * 10,950 mornings later, in our rounded bodies, in the same sorry chairs, we settle. * You…
Read MoreDavid Kirby __________ The Demimonde I’m not so much walking as tilting a little to the left and fallingforward and then tilting to the right by way of compensation …
Read MoreMary Ardery __________ For A Moment The day you detoxed on the trail was alsothe day we found a monarch. It struggledat our feet as we sat eating lunch, tunayou couldn’t keep down. With your bile-chapped lips, you named the creatureAthena, and gently, you took her bodytwitching in your hand.…
Read MoreJames Penha __________ Uncle Ray’s Mirror When, every Sunday, we arrived at The Houseafter the 12:15 mass for dinner with my grand-parents and my mother’s youngest sister wholived there along with the eldest, Jo, the father’sfavorite whose glass eye trembled in lieu of the realone blasted with a BB by…
Read MoreJoseph Sigurdson __________ Letter Nothing’s gone from this white-trash lakeside where young mothers pull honey-buns from their bras and where xanax salesmen can’t spell their own product. You remember the elephantine man. He’s one of the few drunks who nurses me benzodiazepine tea until the petrified spiders are off every…
Read MoreZachary Bond __________ Treating Mania I light a path of candles with my tongue, forkingmyself facefuls of manna, drinking a gallon of hellebore tea. I bathe in a brewof rose oil & lotuswater. The horizon in my stomach continues to flip. The clock inside ticks sideways. Coffinblackcrows paint the sky.…
Read MoreAlice B. Fogel __________ Beautiful What if what you had will befrom a distance clear though it had beenup close indecipherableit could end …
Read MoreDidi Goldenhar __________ Rake How do you make a moral life? Sophiewrites, and later I head to the gardenwith ball of string to save my infant peashoots, tying them on rusty wrought iron.Thank blooming green tulips, thank cilantroand geraniums in cedar boxes.I’m stumped. Humility? Among my hunches—woman kneeling in dirt,…
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