By ELIZABETH HAZEN
Mountains rise beyond the Laundromat
like ochre waves about to crash; our father,
armed with tools and pack, tracks the rocks
without a map. Here, the Laundromat is all
in a strip of vacancies; for miles, nothing
but dirt, dust, outcrop, sky. Our mother gives
From Spider In A Tree
By SUSAN STINSON
Elisha Hawley turned nine years old six weeks after his father had laid violent hands on himself and cut his own throat. Rebekah, Elisha’s mother, made apple flummey seasoned with cinnamon and ginger for breakfast and let him have the last of the bacon with pea soup for supper. She made doughnuts, despite the heat, and let him lead the evening prayer, even though his older brother Joseph mouthed a silent gobble gobble gobble as Elisha stammered over the verse. Life was rising as loss burrowed in. Elisha wanted to snicker at Joseph, or weep with relief that his brother was trying to be funny, but he swallowed all that and sounded out the scripture more loudly, evenabomination, which he didn’t know how to say. Rebekah fixed her eyes on Joseph as Elisha mangled the vowels, then gave them each half a doughnut and a sip of cider before bed.
By HOLLIE HARDY
The first thing you need to know is that the tracheotomy
is an act of desperation and/or violence that should only be
committed when there is no other option.
SOME CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN IT MIGHT BE NECESSARY TO PERFORM A TRACHEOTOMY:
By NATHANIEL PERRY
On rainy days the place seems smaller,
acres still ringed and shrouded by trees,
but the sky is closer, like something landing.
I know you’d like to ask me—please
By TOM SLEIGH
1.
Many desires, many secrets—that’s what the book said.
And it brought me to attention, watching the interior
branches of the pine trees swaying in a paranoid
whisper that reminded me of you standing over
me, your hand in my hand, your mind
not right but your whispering rebelling against
that hissing shhhh of what I couldn’t understand—
An urban garden-party in spring, at dusk. The light waning, the air mild, the walled garden compact but lush.
A cat slinks along one flower-bed’s edge. Guests arrive singly and in couples; they pass through the brownstone’s ground floor to the patio at the back, exchanging handshakes and cheek-kisses as they meet. Their voices generate a steady babble.
By MARIE GAUTHIER
They hack their way through the wild
kingdom of the back yard
while she alights on a chair, her book
unopened on the grass, more
rest for her glass than her eyes,
which follow to foil: spoiled
moods, spilled blood, numinous
harms yet undreamt.
By TOM SLEIGH
At Show and Tell, in front of the whole class,
the cubs’ jaws yawned wider than the boa constrictor’s
that bolted down the lethargic, pink-eyed mouse—
how they’d nuzzle and lean into our stroking…
But when genetics took over, their cells didn’t care
if they grew up in someone’s basement or were teething
From The Long Gone Daddies
By DAVID WILLIAMS
The night doesn’t ask much, my daddy used to say, a whiff of gas and a working radio. Come dark, he said, you can pull in ancient sounds from hundreds of miles away – blue stomps from the big cities, lick-skillet country come down from the hills and up from the hollows, gospel on the lam from grace.
My daddy told me a good many things, for never being around much. He told me stories of the road and the songs he found there. Songs of sweet evil and blue ruckus. Murder ballads, odes to ghosts. Drinking hymns.
By CODY WALKER
You’re just a baby,
And as such, may be
Susceptible to lies
(And wonder, and surprise):
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