[Editors’ Note: An edited version of the following poem was published in chapbook form by Casa de Cinca Press. It is reprinted with permission here.] i. Prologue Lithuania, country of my grandmother’s body unfolding in the cave-like cotton motion of her sleeping gown our dreaming feet entwined toward rest there where I had never been […]
Poetry
November
“Company”
by David Eye
I’ll remember you too clearly . . . There was the college room of it: a fishnet on the walls and ceiling above a single bed. A turntable on bookshelves of stacked cinderblock and pine plank. There was macramé. There was this boy and that boy, the night of not-knowing then knowing. Its bright orange […]
When You’re Dead
by Melissa Buckheit
When you’re dead you no longer have to think about the experiences of your childhood, get up morning after morning or cook meal upon meal until you no longer wish to eat. When you no longer wish to eat, you may be dead. I kept a collection of newspaper articles documenting airplane crashes in my […]
Privilege
by Allison Blevins
I’m going to stop coming out in the usual I don’t want to offend you way. I’ll tell the next children’s librarian who asks me my husband’s name about the time a cop held my wife against our car, ran his hands slowly up her legs, pushed his dry thumb inside her, then walked away. […]
How to Be Gay in Missouri
by Allison Blevins
Keep watch over your children. Forget about linger and loaf. Think of all the yeses you’ve spoken. Aim to be small. Remember loving the sound of some place: a hum or a whoosh. When the men come, when they swell, chests puffed full of gospeled breath, let them come. Be broken like kindling. Remember your mother’s perfume. Think of the hills, […]
Cinderella Washington DC 2004
by Gabriella M. Belfiglio
There is no stepmother. No weak father who discards me— The Prince asked, “Haven’t you got another daughter?” “No,” said the father “there is only a puny little kitchen drudge that my dead wife left me. She couldn’t possibly be the bride. And just forget about the prince, right off. Only a woman […]
Heterosexual Middle Age Males
by Terry Adams
I lie down with you, I feel my beard crush into your beard, I remember pressing my 14-year-old face to a mirror to feel the prized whiskers crumble back to me. I finger the lumps on your balding head and you feel me. Our hair has retreated. Our stomachs have moved softly out into the world. […]
Journalism by Circe Maia
(Translated from Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval)
The detailed description of the symptoms of the death by starvation of the captives in Maze Prison. The report of the surprising recovery, after an accident, of a worker or boy or young woman. The financial commentary: the rise and fall of bonds and shares. Picturesque and humorous stories. Recipes for beauty and the kitchen. […]
The Money and the Talent
by Arne Weingart
You may have grown up thinking you were one thing or the other but at some point you have to decide, really decide which it is you bring to the table, and pardon me if I ask but whose table is it and where does it, so to speak, reside and what shape—if it has […]
Buffalo Girls Won’t You Come Out Tonight
by Arne Weingart
Buffalo girls won’t you come out tonight, Come out tonight, come out tonight? Buffalo girls won’t you come out tonight And dance by the light of the moon? – American minstrel song I. What in point of objective fact do we intend for the Buffalo girls when and if they […]
