From “THE REPORT”

Reporting from the car. The cruise ship’s tall thick white bulk obscures the ship yard and river. There’s a new gallery. Haunted windows specter houses with pumpkins and bony cloaked figures. A turned slope welcomes an empty lot. Nice eaves and a porch invite warm speculation. The best apple doughnut shop is closed. Youths potholes restaurants bars and salons transition gentrification. Guardrails check a downtown view. Bridges string the meandering waterway.

Reporting from the real staged outdoor military event. 1st amendment “fuck you” met with pepper spray pepper bullets flash grenades tear gas and lead bullets. People protest genocide. Taco car wash and construction want broken arms to the ground. Pregnant cages miscarry a generation. We gather throng amass to be beaten and disappeared. Troops flown in from a disparaged state guards against us. A growing national unease with genocide. “Fuck you” and “get out” shouts a childhood song at the edge of peace.

Reporting from pumpkin eyes. Orange from the inside out lit by a candle of cold. Trees turn. The Day of the Dead pedals pet ashes through a crowd. Moss replaces tar paper and sand. Glass turns vegetable. Foot level shuffles bones cracking in sneakers. Strangers hand children sweets. Coat cuddled porch beer itches at evening. Grass is still brown. Rain clears the air for a windy blue chill. Heads turn from dirt work. Cats sit and crows murder at sunset. Surviving spines show their uptake.

Michael Rerick lives and teaches in Portland, OR. Work recently appears or is forthcoming at Action, Spectacle, BlazeVOX, Brief Wilderness, Cola Literary Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, Indefinite Space, Marsh Hawk Review, Oddball Magazine, The Main Street Mag, The Headlight Review, The New Absurdist, and Word For/Word. He is also the author of In Ways Impossible to Fold, morefrom, The Kingdom of Blizzards, The Switch Yards, and X-Ray.