Even his fingerprints vanished. His skin smoothed like river stone; his grip on the world diminished. He was sliding someplace frictionless. * Lovers had become landscape–the woman he knew that ancient summer was lost in a hedgerow, flowering, leaving, framing what could be seen. * What he touched penetrated skin and clung, but he did […]
Poetry
FROM ABROAD by T. R. Hummer
Every night in her childhood, going to sleep, she traveled the paths of the dead. It was easy then to go Where she could not abide in her other consciousness. This was the avenue Caesar the mastiff had wandered. Father said he had run away, and the children nodded solemnly knowing the kind old beast […]
MEMOIR by T. R. Hummer
When they threw me into the pit, a shard of flint split my chin. I flicked it out of my jawbone and lay In my leaking heap, regarding the fineness of its flesh- incising point. Up the black chimney of my prison Vulture stars were circling, repeating all the familiar horrifying patterns. There was blood […]
& CRUEL RED by Mary Kasimor
selections from & CRUEL RED Otoliths, 2010 by Mary Kasimor – ix – my sister is swaddled in the grass I ventured out held down the milky way & ran aground to the surface I consciously met her on the midwest ice conscience compensating for too little self too many sisters the flattened path was suspicions the placed path exhumed a […]
WIW?3 HOLD ME TIGHT. MAKE ME HAPPY by C. J. Martin
from WIW?3 HOLD ME TIGHT. MAKE ME HAPPY Delete Press, 2009 by C. J. Martin UNTITLED midst that mossiness I on elm-tree from elm-tree aforesaid Pictures of my sonic Manzano Gone around, explicated pass, as material land grant nearer 2 bulks of 3, of cottonwood treaty In revulsion to you / suddenly-in-front-of UNTITLED They […]
WITH THE MEMORY, WHICH IS ENORMOUS by Tony Trigilio
from WITH THE MEMORY, WHICH IS ENORMOUS Main Street Rag, 2009 by Tony Trigilio AVIARY —for my brother I wanted to evict the pigeon who snuck in the living room window three weeks ago. Its fat tiptoe around the baby (not ours) laughing at the ceiling. I wish I could’ve loved the bird […]
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND OTHER POEMS by David R. Slavitt
from THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND OTHER POEMS LSU Press, 2009 by David R. Slavitt THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 1. Pride Surely, there must be some mistake. I admit at once that my name is there with the other six, but after all, if you look at what I am and what I […]
RECLAIMING THE DEAD by Miriam Kotzin
selections from RECLAIMING THE DEAD New American Press, 2008 by Miriam Kotzin SEDER “And the Holy One, blessed be He, came and killed the Angel of Death.” —Chad Gadya The host is eager to begin. Like a too familiar uncle, the Angel of Death circles the table. The first question: whose turn. Alone, my […]
LIP by Kathy Fagan
selections from LIP Eastern Washington University Press, 2009 by Kathy Fagan ONTOLOGY AND THE PLATYPUS So which mammalian fuck-up list produced the platypus, produced the bird-billed, flat-foot, erstwhile beavers dressed like ducks for Halloween? Crepuscular and nipple-less, they suckle hatchlings in the changeling dusk— Diaphanously the god-swan boned a married chick and she […]
THE YOUNG MAIDEN by Georg Trakl (translated by Daniele Pantano)
Dedicated to Ludwig von Ficker 1 Often by the well at dusk, You see her standing spellbound Drawing water at dusk. Buckets plunge up and down. In the beeches jackdaws flutter And she is like a shadow. Her yellow hair flutters And rats scream in the yard. And coaxed by abasement She narrows her […]
