By Pamela Wax —for Rob …at the still point, there the dance is. — T.S. Eliot There you are, baking breadbefore sunrise, kneadingits knots and sinews like a masseuse.You divine the dough’s perfect balancebetween a big-belly Buddhaand a contortionist, nudging…
By George Freek The moon is a crooked thumbnail,clawing through a hollow sky.I stare at the stars,obdurate as quartz or leadlike the mattress of my bed.The moon is hidden bythe withering leaves of a tree.Sympathy is rare.Compassion is a mystery.I feel like the crumbling ruinsof a marker in a cemeteryto…
By Joan Mazza He said if you married a woman youngenough, you’d have time to mold her, fold herthe way you wanted. Origami tongue.He could train her like a vine, clipped and trimmedlike topiary. Mowed like a lawn.Younger was better, though a certain kindof clay was needed for her to…
By James Croal Jackson Perhaps divinity is in devotion– pages of textover thousands of years, eternal ramblingin the clockwork ticking the days to etch instone the wings I’d searched away, blindfaith in running water, erosion of the endlessnights I’d stay awake to eke out meaning.
By Jimmy Pappas We are bats at the mercy of young boysthrowing baseballs high into the nightsky under a streetlight causing us to chaseafter the movement only to swerve awayat the last second still searching for moths. & We are magicians’ helpersprivy to the secretsbut never findingthe adulation we crave….
By Jessie Raymundo For now let’s talk about sinkingcities, said my motherwho carries a pair of Neptunesin her eyes & paints about phantoms in Philippine poetry. Gravity is whenthe psychiatrist assessed you& heard a heart murmur like rain.In an instant, you were in the sea: a merman sticking his headabove…
By James Croal Jackson I know I know if I can understand you I am an asshole but I want you to do well I want you to write in the sunbarefoot on brick with…
By Jen Drociak I’ve never been much of oneto collect or save mementos;intact slipper shells,angel wings,or even the elusive sea starwashed upon the rocky shore. a perfectly-rounded stonesmoothed by the pummeling ocean wavesor a piece of sea glass, once keeping time in a bottle. Nor even a flower, some may…
By Jimmy Pappas (This poem contains suicide.) Everyone owed me a call.That’s what she wrote,her suicide note of sortsposted on a sticky padattached to a boxof Christmas presentsshe never mailed out. That’s how it all works,isn’t it? We owe each otherthings: the book we borrowedlong ago that we kept holding…
By James Croal Jackson we again drink through tuesdayon a rooftop around the corner ofwhere we grew up watching trafficnearly crash into every other carat rush hour there’s no room forinterpretation at 6 pm everyonecomes home from work crankythis fucked economy of wakingto pay bills a sunrise for the rich