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Nate Pritts
Hi There
I
am a tiny leaf that is lost to its branch
&
is wind-tossed & sad & lost
or
I am like a lost leaf because a leaf
is
such thin sorrow & you, you know this
because
you are also a leaf or at least
like
a leaf in your demeanor; see how subtly
your
hands move, giant seagulls swifting over
whatever
oceans rage with joy, or your hands
are
like giant seagulls, rounded & white,
swooping
over something like an ocean
that
rages overjoyed at their own ridiculous love
of
that big something blue that keeps boats afloat
&
lasts for five days or longer
if
the correct amount of money is applied to the account
before
the balance dwindles to nothing
&
I am that overdrawn account in that
you
cannot acquire anything of worth by using me
&
you know this
because
your ledger is often unbalanced if by ledger
we
can agree that I mean mental/emotional state
&
certainly we can agree can’t we? We can agree
on
so much it makes our disagreements shrink
like
birds dotting the horizon or like clouds
swept
away by high winds which is one more thing
we
can agree on, that the clouds are clouds
or
are at least exactly like clouds. They are things
you
can’t touch & hang out of reach.
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Matthea Harvey
DINNA’ PIG
Members
of the Family rarely spoke to each other, but when they did, they
studied each other’s throats. The youngest grabbed a pitchfork
for protection long before she learned to walk and when she did learn
to walk she didn’t put the pitchfork down. Pa found the pig in
a stall at market breathing heavily behind a sheet of corrugated tin.
He felt something welling up inside him—love—and spat it
onto the tin where it glistened like a chrysalis. That didn’t
get rid of the feeling so he brought the pig home. Ma gave Dinna’
Pig his name so that no-one would forget where that pig was headed.
She liked to call a spade a spade, hence her children: Mistake,
Mistake 2 and Goddamnit. Dinna’ Pig wasn’t particularly
loveable; he didn’t run to the side of his pen oinking sweetly
when he saw a family member. He wasn’t clean or smart. He sat
in his shit and liked it. Goddamnit thought she’d once seen him
nose his own reflection in her shiny rubber boot, but she couldn’t
be sure. In any other farmyard, love would have slid off Dinna’
Pig’s oily hair, seeped from his watery eyes, bounced off the
coil of his tail and landed on something fluffier. But the Family
couldn’t help itself—their love was stirred into the grey
slop he was fed daily, got in under his trotters, shone in the handle
of the shovel they used to shovel his shit. Late one night Mistake
rammed some love up Dinna’ Pig’s puckered little asshole.
Goddamnit, who’d been clutching her pitchfork in sleep,
suddenly hurled it across the room. She was having a beautiful dream.
It was Sunday dinner and she was the only one at the table cramming
handfuls of love into her enormous mouth.
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Jason Zuzga
Diet
I
exercise alone at night.
I
am getting stronger
and
losing the band of flesh
around
my waist, slowly, not
like
the man I saw on the surgery
channel
who had his midriff peeled
up
like a rind. I lift
things
from my backpack and
put
them on my bed. I think
I
am learning to put my pants on
without
thinking about you
putting
me on like a terrified finger puppet.
You
could be a person sleeping
in
a hotel room with a bolted down
remote
control. I'll just lie
here
awhile. You can go.
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Terri Ford
Three Notes Toward Thrush
One
of my friends is a transistor monkey.
One
of my friends is an open-mouthed bird.
One
of my chairs is piled high with black clothes.
One
night I ended in nine bars of noise.
On
New Year’s Day, I heard the bay hounding.
On
your conscience may the hoon ray furl.
On
Maddy’s blue wrist, you can trace a home world.
O
the baby sleeping like a boneless hot cookie.
O
to lose my heading in the high horse way.
O
the sudsing in me when you love up my name-o.
To end the last time on a clear glass note.
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Michael Schiavo
Landscape With Jet Engine Drone, Morning
Dew, Corpse-Colored Sky, and Orchid
Weather,
now, is all we have in common, and even
In
that we disagree on the particulars.
“Fog”
versus “mist.” Partly sunny? Mostly cloudy.
My
day begins at dawn, not when I awake,
And
you’re a morning next year. I’m a train that, leaving
The
station late, arrives, nevertheless, on time. One star
Is
not enough to guide us; the whole sky is necessary.
Does
this not make you rumple and quake?
I
am sorry, my cusp, for lately being so absorbed
With
understanding you, your farms and fences.
It’s
not often on this pale the entire globe
Creaks
slower, doused in love’s intelligence.
This
correction is gloom-filled, I’ll tell you why:
You smell like death, look like the lawn, sound like the sky.
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Jason Schneiderman
The Worst Children’s Book Ever
Seven
angels appeared to Kristen after the death of her parents. “We’re
not angels,” they said, but there was no fooling Kristen. “Yes
you are,” she said. “Please,” the angels said,
“start a new paragraph for each individual speaker.”
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Dora Malech
Fittest, Survival Of
Seduction
by fire, for fire.
By
distance, by poultice,
seduction
by swaying
and
what a show we were—
all
the tumblers trussed
in
the tightrope, tangle
of
hooks and crooks and nannies,
sons
of the nuns and the dry drunks,
sons
called “Off the Search,”
sons
called “It a Day,”
and
“The End” always a crocodile.
This
is not a cancer but further
evaluation
is recommended
for
the reassurance that something
of
more concern is not present.
Marching
orders: go disfigure.
Press
zero to speak to an operator
or
just say help. Fly on the wall
for
lobotomists’ shop talk,
old
tongue’s new trick tries
“kanflu`greyshun”
on for size.
“Oo”
as in boot, “ur” as in urge.
This
heat-seeking scope
is
a dream in the bedroom.
We’ve
let baby call the wolf
a
woof-woof for too long.
Sick
kitty’s pity party mewling
what
remains? What remains—
Questions
for corpses.
Shameless
angels flaunting their empties.
Percussion,
repercussion,
ahem,
amen, a pause,
applause,
exit stage left.
God
won’t miss six swans and a heron.
Presupposition,
presupplication.
There
was a time when the river
could
have forgiven, wanted nothing more
than
for us to wade in and start singing.
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Scott Dennis
Mystery Zoo
What
do you want to do now asks one of the voices
and
suddenly I’m thrown into the mix with the red cola
and
kitten faces I like the way you eat popcorn
When the sun falls I refuse to fall with it.
Home
is melt-downing into new particulars—like what
are
we doing?
and
when do you want to start doing it? if you want it to
go
that far?
I
don’t even want to look up your skirt I swear I’m not
that type of person
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Chris Hund
To Fill, To Sell
I
work for a canteen store.
This
one holds water.
My
pocket has a pocket
to
hold tossing jacks.
The
wall pocket holds the key
to
the picture frame.
Picture
a sepia colored canteen. Empty it–
snow.
Snow’s still coming down.
Commercial
signs covered.
Tiny
Lounge. Tinier lounge singer.
Large
vocal cords, larger hand
to
pluck them. Larger hand
to
mitten for the trudging months.
A
deserted winter–water water
condensed
everywhere and difficult
to
catch in a small necked canteen.
This
one nests tinier and tinier
canteens
till the last holds a dash.
A
drip-drop, a thimbleful, not enough.
Enough
for a nation of plankton enough.
Here
I am stuck working an oasis.
I
get the service off hitchless.
The
smallest oasis at large.
Here
I am, one clerk, enormous and nested.
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