Allen Stein: Contact Trace
they’d determined that he’d picked up the Covid
while getting fitted for tortoiseshell bifocals
to replace the pair his puppy had chewed
Jose Padua: Ten Sonnets for Electric Motherfuckers — The Second Decad
Karen, call the cops, he’s waiting by the curb
reading Colson Whitehead’s least popular book, I can smell him from
here, he’s wearing Pakistani musk, furrowing his frou frou eyebrows…
David Rivard: Maria’s Yellow Coat
a sun that floats the way
Maria’s knitted newsboy cap did once,
just above the horizon
Elizabeth Romero: Happiness
I live in a pink truck at the edge of the sky.
Abby Zimet: ReAwakening To Insect Burgers, Deep-State Trash, Globalist Predators and Demonic Satellites, Praise God
We regret to inform you that a bewilderingly sizeable segment of our country has mutated into a horde of racist, crackpot, paranoid, Covid-denying, demon-obsessed, anti-trans-and-illuminati-and-quantum-physics “Army of God” warriors…
Jose Padua: What I’m Reading
History is layered, full of bones and ghosts, herself a storm of beau- tiful, frightening talent.
Video: Stella Young | I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much
In this very funny talk, Stella Young breaks down society’s habit of turning disabled people into “inspiration porn.”
Video: The Beetle at the End of the Street
In this Fellini-esque comedy, a psychic fishmonger foresees Amadeo’s death, so his fellow villagers rally to give him the best final seven days for which one could ask.
John O’Keefe: Amo, Amas
Amo, Amas, I love a lass
As a cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip’s grace is her nominative case,
And she’s of the feminine gender.
John Balaban: Two Poems
Three men dancing. Not drunk, just immensely amused
knowing that soon enough there would be only the wind
shushing its sad music along an empty shore.
Julie Bruck: The Last Two Jews of Kabul
When his roommate finally expired at eighty,
Zebulon said he was relieved to be rid of Isaak.
The pair had held out in a decaying synagogue
under Mujahedeen, Taliban, Americans, more Taliban.
Dawn Potter: The Unicorn Is in Captivity and No Longer Dead
Which do I like better, someone asks, fork or spoon?
And I reply, That’s not a question for Thursday.
Ask me instead how I lost my virginity,
Paul Christensen: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Twit
I used to wander around on lower Broadway in Manhattan when I was still a teenager. I had a dead-end job at a valve company taking orders from plumbers wanting a gate valve or oversized coupling for an apartment building going up.
Louise Hawes: My muse at seventy-something
My muse is fast; her legs, long, relentless,
churn like propellers. She seldom stops to
explain where we’re going.
