OLD PAINT COLORS by Sheree LaPuma
Old Paint Colors
Before he died, we shared a common history.The slow unfurling of breath, a womb, twohands, a tapestry of goodbyes in sepia. Aplacenta, grey, buried under the pine-straw
of winter. So many sad things...
GASLIGHTING by Amy Gautschi
GASLIGHTINGNothing can be found hereThere is no space to growThe walls are moving closerI don’t know where to goUp is to the leftExcept when it’s to the rightOutside the sun is shiningBut in here...
CHICAGO by Elsa Pair
Bloodletting
Bloodletting,but for the rage.
If I cut open my chestsurely all that will come out is the
rage, spilling down my frontlike vomit or molten lava.
If I hold it in any longerthe fever will kill me,
and...
COMING OUT by Chris Arnone
Coming Out
head-first, blood-slickedhair like a tiny John Stamos.Bubbling with style but no pronouns.
Snip the umbilical, suctionand wail, count tenfingers and toes but no sex.
The womb was mycloset, sonogram spunstraw into a golden child.
No mom-we-need-to-talk...
PESSOAS by Arthur Powers
Seánce with Fernando Pessoa
1.
I, I, I, I… or should I say “we”we know the Anglo-Saxon mindthat desperately seeks and seeks to findthe Truth behind ambiguity.
Do we not know the black/white of your thoughts?Did we...
BOBOLINKO IN A FOREST by Kenneth Pobo
WANDAWOOWOO AND MATH
Numbers feel like a desertI’ve never visited. I’m probably missingsome gorgeous night-blooming cacti.I doubt I’ll ever venture there. I havemovies, books, and music. In high schoolI entered a dark room called algebra.When...
THREE DAYS by Peggy Hammond
Three Days
An oak we plantedleans precariouslyinto areas not its own.
An expert arrives,advises removal.Clinical, he ticks off the steps.Limbs shorn, trunkcut into sections, hauled down,and if I desire, the stump taken,leaving a depressionwhich time will...
TENEMENT BASH by John Grey
TENEMENT BASHAnother partyon another tenement third floor.He gets there late.There's people speaking Spanish.There's some speaking English.It's a neighborhood bashand it's that kind of neighborhood.The food's mostly Mexican,tacos, burritos,and the beer's Coronathough someone lugged alongsome...
VESPERS UPDATE by Don Thompson
Vespers Update
In this season, the sun setslike an afterthought, its lightalready non-luminous.
The hills mostly murkwith some leftover mauvethat’s gone flat.
But Venus burns a holein the West, intenseand more adamant than ever.**
January 31st
1.The sun through...