You are a tortoise in a hard hat.
I am a heart growing gallons and gallons of hair.
You made it with me: a perfect love,
which went hard from the softness of its innards.
And though all the love went elsewhere, you hung around,
like a gas, like sand in my bikini pants.
Katharine Kilalea is the author of One Eye’d Leigh, shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize for writeers under 30.
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DANIEL TOBIN
No kindred of an earth, it must stalk alone, / or scavenge what the visitants leave behind. // or bird’s eggs, rabbits, the odd neighborhood / cat wandered over from some nearby home. / Its tail affects the lilt of a semaphore; its pelt // a finish of rust in sunlight.
LAUREN DELAPENHA
For example, the last time I asked God / to kill me I was among the lemons, remembering // the preacher saying, God is a God who is able / to hunger. I wonder, // aren’t we all here for that fast / communion of a stranger reaching // for the same hydroponic melon?
STEFAN BINDLEY-TAYLOR
His left wrist dangled out the half-wound-down glass of a boxy brown Cadillac with red felt seats. Flies drifted in and out. He had a dip top cone in his hand. The place was famous for them. You’d think it would be melting in the heat, but the molten chocolate shell held
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