Poetry
Deciduous by Kasandra Larsen
Falling off at maturity
falling out as soft baby teeth
brown needles
bicuspids
brazen
Antlers with their velvet loosened.
Abscission sounds just like the thief
nature made it, takes advantage
of winter
drought
the sixth birthday.
Pairs with gravity. Steals away.
Kasandra Larsen's STELLAR TELEGRAM won the 2009 Sheltering Pines Press Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming [...]
Alone by Kate McNairy
Swim
Lonely one,
Curley head sinks rises up for air,
water separates limbs,
Arm over arm I swim. I need
The
Pills, have to
be exact (the terrifying cost).
I am a chemical
cocktail, have no idea I am,
But
Monday morns
I line up the bottles, four to make
well, three for side effects.
[...]
A Runny Nose in January by Kyle Torke
Love is the loose elevator cable, a hibernating bear, A juggler with fire torches, a blister before the skin rises With pus, a leaky shock on a heavy truck going downhill, A shovel before the hole’s been dug or the seeds planted, A heart monitor without any sound, a juggler with fire Torches and no [...]
Yesterday by Mitchell Untch
after you’d gone
our bodies
uncoupled in the dark
I lay in bed
and started to think of things
that are halved
apples pears
seeds
and the knives that separate them
I thought of doors
half open half closed
their wide
unexpected swings
into the middle of rooms
how they halve distances
I thought of windows
invisible seams
that separate interiors
from exteriors
from where you are
and where you are going
half journeyed
and half way [...]
Fleetwood Factory by Peggy Douglas
My son heaves plywood on the line, where compressed air and staples two inches long find their rhyme: throw a board up staple back, whack, along paneling lines. Throw a board up stable back, whack. No words ever spoken. Stud walls swabbed with industrial glue waiting for nailers and screwgunners to echo and reverb. Jigs [...]
A Poem for the Future Generation by Jeremy Quintero
I hope I can watch you grow up to be just like your dad // you can
rank above the both of us, he Kahuna // I maka’ainana
I will put your head in stars blessed, turn/twist/shine/spin
Mana in your palms // a prayer for those dying to manifest into those unborn
Kapu flows from veins unseen, the distance [...]
Fuck Fest for the Common Man by Jeremy Quintero
maybe Copland had it right the first time // we create nothing in wartime
maybe all Foster wanted was a banjo on his knee // oh! Susanna,
you turned out to be such a slut
maybe West Side Story got it wrong // there’s always a slaughter on tenth avenue
maybe Rhapsody comes in other colors (perhaps a spot [...]
Hungry Mouths by Melissa Guillet
Three beaks ascend
at my mimicry squawk,
open like scissors
to paper-crisp air.
Later we find the mother looking
serene sheltering her trio.
I tell my children to look
but do not touch.
The father frequents
the tree above
my daughter’s swing.
I admire the color this blue jay brings
to a green, flowerless summer,
to several weeks of rain,
clean his shit off
the plastic seat and [...]
Duet by Joanne Lowery
We lift our heads from our computer screens
throughout the day: Amtrak’s whistle
a whiff of the world passing through town.
Where would we rather be than at our desks?
But the guy who failed to outrace the 4:15
had no job, in a hurry anyway,
and we had already flex-timed ourselves home
when he ran and ran and the whistlecall
wouldn’t stop, [...]
Lost Backward by Patsy Anne Bickerstaff
Sausage jackhandle careens between abandoned Radio Flyer, overturned, missing
wheel, leg, fin, wing, whatever belongs on its corner
may as well give up on two doves pacing in mulch, toasting bread
you will never reconnoiter Great Wall Collage.
Whisper the dog around (should that be asquare?) the block
tears dripping off your shoulders like ripe mulberries
all is cheese, flush [...]