Category: Poetry

By Chris Watkins                         After torrin a. greathouse   Sing, godx, of one with many names and forms. Rage for Thomas(ine) Hall, born 1603, Newcastle. Sing of one driven far from home and into war. Sing an epic-sapphic, seraphamic, many-winged song. Sing! Let us learn. Tell how, in those days, comely James I tried to conquer, […]

By Natalie Louise Tombasco Girls, this calls for an excavation:come with hard hats and field notes,            sharp trowels and sieves. Brush the earth             from ancient secrets, from the gold-clad wristthat gestures toward rotten tooth truth—did I lose half a day of skiing for this? Some of you are beyond repair.            But this is an emergency!Axe down every […]

By Amelia K. Bloodsick and crumbling like first place ribbons                   you can’t eat, and no one wants to                                                                               preservea peach gone soft at the height of the season                      greet pain that makes atheists out of                                                                   so called saints tyingribbons on a lover’s wrists scarless like a baby                     no one asked forand no one is allowed to give back, […]

By John Kucera I remember watching my father stopHalfway up the driveway because my bicycleWas blocking the way to the garage,And how he solved the problemBy picking up the bicycle by the handlebarsAnd smashing it through the windshieldOf our brand-new Chrysler station wagon,His face red with scotch, his black tieAnd jacket flapping with effort, the […]

By Andrew Hemmert From what I can tell, most of the drivers believe in God,and a god is a good thing to have if driving is your job.At the end of the interview, my soon-to-be boss told mea motorcyclist hit one of our cars going ninetyin a forty-five. Died instantly. Our driver survivedbut couldn’t shake […]

by Afton Montgomery Mom was pregnant with me when the Chuck E. Cheese murder happeneddown the street and when “Blue Mustang” was commissionedto whinny in fiberglass at the center of Peña Boulevard by the Denver airport.The horse is the sort of blue the Rockies turn early in the morningwhen there’s still snow in the high […]

by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura Just as I remembered—Michelle Pfeiffer eyes, Meryl Streep nose and lips. We sat across the table from each other in a group of theater people. Caliente Cab Co., New York City. I knew you in San Francisco, I said. Explained that years ago, I played percussion for Godspell, the musical you directed. […]

by Weston Morrow “You have died…” – Colossians 3:3– Oregon Trail, the video game All my ghosts come back,dying slowly, smoking cigarettesand speaking French. Even the cats,dead this past decade (hawk, car, diabetes)have returned to sleep, curled upin the crook of my knee. And the coyotesmy dad killed last winter tuck their chinsbefore the fireplace. […]

by Alex Baskin our ancestors cut each other’s hair. they knew not of the unisex salon.on your porch, you wrap me in an old tapestry and unsheathe sharp scissors. we are both resourceful and jews. we both love assplay. you grin at me and slant your head.we slant our slantedness, offer it to the world. […]

by James Kelly Quigley The loops of razor wirebathed in floodlightsspike you without touching,and up those knee-deep poolswith pneumatic jackhammersyou say the muck’s like soupand the hog says yeah clam chowdernow would you kindly shut the fuck uphose that rebar with the concreteso I can go home and not fuck my wife.He holds court amid […]