Carol Frost: Now Soon
Father and mother time to rise up put away the dark
give back to him more than he can ever use give what is
not his to have what he never knew he knows and all he feels
Jim Daniels: My Security Question
The closet in her room
remains as she left it
clothes losing their dark
interest. Ghosts in the dust.
Video: Bruiser
After his father gets into a fight at a bowling alley, Darious begins to investigate the limitations of his own manhood.
Tony Gloeggler: Cheez-Its
He makes a wounded bird sound
if we have to sit at the bar, wait
for a table, or the waitress brings
his apple juice a bit too slowly
Megan Merchant / Luke Johnson: Origin Story (An Epistolary Dialogue)
From our window, grosbeaks
and buntings tangle into flight. The hours count
earlier now, because of the way they are lit.
Tony Gloeggler: Autistic Joy
He freezes, tries not to look at me and places
his hand over his mouth as this boundless
sound spills out, his eyes bubbly blue champagne,
while his body shakes and shivers in happiness.
Paul Christensen: While Boston Sleeps
The day proceeded to turn over heavily, with the sun appearing to be bolted to a chink of sky between morose gray clouds. Poor Boston, poor humble Providence, all those rivets of history to our genesis as a nation graying in the ancient countryside.
Peter Makuck: Day on the River
It was during Christmas vacation that I first met Mr. Talbot. His son, Jean-Luc, was my good friend and classmate at a small Franciscan college in a French-Canadian enclave in … Continue reading
Al Ortolani: Paper Birds Don’t Fly
Sitting at the table with the paper birds,
she unfolded mine and began to read.
I couldn’t make out a word
she was saying.
Majid Naficy: The Family Koran
There, in the tradition of the Old Testament,
He stoned the unruly women
And hanged the disillusioned youth
In the market place.
Fred Everett Maus: Yellow
In the days after, we did not weep in each other’s
presence, nor hold each other, nor say much
about our feelings. It was how we had always been.
Gary Fincke: The Double Negatives of the Living
I could talk
Two hours past midnight with
My father in the steelworker
Idiom of his city.
Gary Fincke: The Local Cemetery
Says she has purchased space
In the Garden of Dreams,
Which, so far, leaves me out
George Drew: Positive Space
he taught me how to make a military tuck
of the sheets and blankets; the way a quarter should bounce,
and when it did, the way he’d smile and clap my back. I lived for that.
