Hayden Saunier: The Spin
My washing machine won’t operate
without the matte black hardcover
American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition,
placed atop its lid. I no longer question this.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Hermanas
You’re the same, you two, J, my lover, said. Of course you feel an affinity. I stared at the Frida Kahlo self-portrait in his hands. Frida’s soulful sweetness stared back. You … Continue reading
Sean Sexton: Planting Aeschynomene Seed
It pours from a muslin sack like sunlight
through a cracked window shade, fifty pounds
to a metal washtub, old as your footsteps.
Antonia Alexandra Klimenko: Yes, I affirmed…
It was then that the light filtered through the curtain and passed through me as all things pass. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Ah, Spring!
Nina Padolf: In line at the food bank with my roommate a disabled vet in Pittsburgh
It’s our turn, they escort us around
each section as if we’re in prison
Barbara Hamby: 17 Dollars
That’s how much the man who owned DuBey’s gave me
for my books that time you insisted
they were taking up space and we needed the money.
Al Maginnes: Lydia Loveless’s X
And just over her heart,
a tattooed X, a set of crossed sticks, stitched
into the skin with a sewing needle and ink,
jailhouse style.
Video: “Mauches” by Angele Ellis
I never learned la bella lingua except
to write you one letter in schoolgirl Italian
from college, a letter you loved so much
it fell into sharp creases
Baron Wormser: Lives of the Heroes
When I was a boy, around the ages of nine and ten, I read dozens of biographies. I can still see the books.
Djelloul Marbrook: Annotating Books and Other Heresies
I grew up in an austere Protestant ethos in which the annotation of a book was desecration, as sinful as a Catholic mass. We were to cherish books and pass … Continue reading
