I ask for nothing of this land that has given me everything I loved and hated its men found my Adam he fled with a bodybuilder as soon as I gained weight I sought God and in his place found knowledge I discovered a home in my body and since then moved […]
Poetry
Nightbird
Interlopers
by Carolyn Oliver
Early sun nestled under trees and eaves that cupped our voices counting up past ten and naming creatures—shrews, dolphins, bats, whales— who’d catch the news of our passing through fog, or night, or krill clouds in the deep. Mothers, I told you, echolocate too. For months I’d hummed and heard you in my dark, held […]
Dec. 7th, 1941
by Stephen Gibson
She wasn’t sure what happened, hearing the news— she was buying a pack of smokes at the corner (not for herself, she didn’t smoke, for her father). She wasn’t sure what happened, hearing the news: a girlfriend was in Lenox Hill—some car hit her (only later, my mom learned about Honolulu). She wasn’t sure what […]
The Art of Poetry: Summer of Love
by Stephen Gibson
Clo needs to believe she’ll help to end the war and, with those others she lives with in the Haight, that she’ll actually find peace and love forever. She’s run away with a girlfriend—this is before we meet (which turns out, not too soon—or too late): Clo needs to believe she’ll help to end […]
Meditation One
by Marc Frazier
What we spoke of at those times— ordinary things like the weather, the inner life of Midwesterners rarely spoken of. Self-reflection a luxury of the lazy. We sat outside so much growing up— on the front porch, in the yard, often before, during, or after a storm. I remember mostly times with mother who […]
Mood Piece
by Alice B. Fogel
The subject of the fan is a mere suggestion, open to interpretation. Painted bat wing, paper leaf, it knows its way in the dark. Both shield against light and quickener of flame, the fan’s act of concealment perfects flirtation, graces grief. Folded in on itself, dipped in clear water, then—flashed and […]
Epiphyte
by Alice B. Fogel
A moment of joy—that surprise of uplift: Standing on a wet street in town, I looked up and saw —then, as suddenly losing it, had to say only thought I saw—a bridge! High over the river it was an unexpected span between sides, between times, spiky and bright against the nearly night. But of course […]
As If
by Alice B. Fogel
When I realized I’d drifted deep into those riveted, river-resistant lily pads big as masks, I was reminded of how when you’re trapped in insistence that it doesn’t matter that surely means it does. My oars slicing down on them through the water thick with sticky greens and ropy stems made the sound […]
The Right Way Home
by Deborah Flanagan
All night a knife sleeps in the sand, next to a monk eating an onion in the desert. The knife slices through the onion’s delusions. The monk extracts knives of various shapes and sizes from his chest, throat, shoulder; wipes off each one, dabs at the blood. He is so hard on himself. The knife […]
The List of Unusual Deaths
by Deborah Flanagan
In 762, poet Li Po kisses the reflection of the moon beside his boat, falls overboard and drowns. I like men and moons. His head, an old chandelier, going dark. In 1911, Distiller Jack Daniel kicks his safe: can’t remember the combination. Dies from blood poisoning from his infected toe. In 1387, […]
