by Maggie Wolff She Mer Her on a MondayErasure of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette I was irritable excited the moment approached A bell tinkled. The bell tinkled again. I had to speakthe very first words. bright lights, the long room black beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten speech my tongue got free, andmy voice thought ofnothinglistening, watching she observed a certain […]
Tag: Poetry
by Maggie Wolff In the BeginningErasure of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette pleasure if she could only reach it shine in some bright distant sphere yearning to attain, hunger to taste Isaw her my golden sign dark curve I had feelings little as Ispoke, cold as I looked, accidents stirred up acraving a thunderstorm broke; a hurricane shook us the tempest took hold of me I […]
by Trinity Richardson Ode to the Fly from Breaking Bad Whom I have started many fights over,hoping in my passionsomeone might see me.Do you think the fly from Breaking Bad—if he were real—would go to heaven or hell?I know you believein purgatory,but for argument’s sake,(for my sake)let’s pretend there’s no more waitingafter we die.A common […]
by Dara Goodale Growing Pains I’ve never known what to do with my hands. I don’t deal in absolutes but I tend to swallow guilt like zeros, stuck behind a screenwith my binary mouth encrypted all wrong. I take the train. There is nothing waiting for me at the end of the line. The minimart is always closed.I’m out of cigs so […]
by Samantha R. Sharp Cedar Key Not usually do I sleep in the dark, hear an animal in the house, a damp body rattle the hot iron grate, the wind as it stalks the gaps in the sand. I keep the light in here too harsh, bleaches the skin of my eyes, burns off the […]
by Charles Kell An American Werewolf in London In one vision, I’m running naked in slow motionacross a damp field, a salmon rose poking from my anus. In another, my eyes melt into syrupy red wine sloshing in a plastic cup.We stagger from the atavistic shock of recognition.The apartment walls close in, smell of burntdust from an […]
by Charles Kell Reading in the Dark In Pataias I lie flat on an abandoned tennis court to watch the ants slowly rip apart then devour the carcass of a small gecko. Weeds, tufts of grass poke from the cracked concreteto touch the sky’s grayish blue. Earlier, walking alone on the beach, sandand cool water mixing on my […]
by Joshua Zeitler I Need to Grieve a Little Louder When I was a child, my mother could have whirledthe world like a lollipop, tongue-wet and color-spun. Instead, she hid all the candy. When asked,my father said, What candy? Only now do I understand that this was the beginning of understanding.I used to think the universe was […]
by Kevin Grauke For Noah’s Raven Everyone remembers the dove Noah sent forth from the ark perched atop Mount Ararat to see if the swollen waters had abated. And everyone remembers how this dove returned with an olivebranch clutched in its beak, a sign that dry land had risen again, but no one remembers the raven he sent first, the […]
by Alexander Duringer Notes on Doom We started work in the factory where sweatcrept through boxers to asshole, fetid & slick as the slit throat of a bull sacrificedto a god gone estranged. Together we walkedto the car through a group of men who’d sniffed my voice, watched my hands swish buckets or fold the new-printed shirts too […]
by Chad Knuth Aubade for a Friend My friend stands in his kitchen peeling boiled eggs Apologizing profusely for the strength of his own hands I tell him it’s okay—I will eat the mangled ones Tell him I’m used to eating ugly things Be it wilting lettuces or sprouting spuds Be it kernels in my […]
by Parker Logan God Loves Hair And spit, plenty of it, as I tilt my head Back and you keep your thumb on myChin, forcing my mouth wide as your fingers Drift down my throat, my cheeksExtra red from the slap you just issued, and Fuck, it’s so hot to get topped by aGirl, though I like it […]
by Gordon Taylor Stone Fruit My younger lover in vintage selvedge jeans and orange hoodie, wipes our kitchen counter. Orange is my favouritecolour. Can the cluster of rotting tangerines coated with a skin of flies in the acacia bowleffuse a sweet flavour? Should I retire from drink in this middle middle age? The answer: juice. I don’t mean sex. Or I do. I’m […]
by Erika Wright Doomsday Clock, December 1987 kitchen table, beside a bay window / winter in southeast Texas /dark at dinnertime / my parents / keep the news on / Dan Rather / announces/ time can move/ in reverse/ doomsday clock / sets back3 minutes to midnight / mutually assured destruction avoided/ my family in […]
by Ella Flores Mural of Market Day in Rainy Season Already the bluebirds have pushed their young from tangled nests of twine & telephone wire. Already the plastic canopies overlap stalls within stalls & within one, a steel hook creaks a pig’s swaying head, snout filled with the smoke of its own taste buds. Already […]
After Philip Levine by Maria McLeod The Fallow Deer of Belle Isle, 1983 After Philip Levine The fallow deer of Belle Isledo not appearin Phil Levine’s poemabout his nighttime swimin the Detroit Riverwith the Polish girl.But I am there, on a different planeof time, which I’ve learnedis how the past becomes the presentin the passenger […]
by Craig Seip With My Teeth When your mother tells you she thinks she might begay because she’snever gotten wetfor your dad, there opens this long,slowly bending arc, that separates the child you had been,and who you are now. We sit in the living room, air thick with Merit 100s’ woody scent,TV droning, you complain about dad, hint at divorce,and I preen you, […]
by Cora Schipa Cliffside From the top I’m pink-scalped,cowlicked, feather-fine. Keen to fluff,split-ended. I half-dream digging a holein my left temple, reeling outmigraine’s scale-flash of pain.Blot of ethanol and a new suitrender me numb-skulled, hard-headed,done wrong, wrongdoing, evil-spun,bloodthirsty, sacrosanct. Downright easy. Uniform-clad, on the clock, I’m doll-eyedpixie dreamboat at your service,your very own hot-blooded bombshell […]
by Sarah Brockhaus Girl Night Today the body is just a word I made up in my sleep: a dream I almost wakeremembering, the sheen stumbling away until I don’t make sense: mind a mountain of images and Ican’t identify a single object. Like this, pain distorts body until I can’t decipher leg from back from stomach, nospecificity left […]
by Trinity Richardson Ode to the American Flagfish My own bulldog-fish guarding me from quantifiable vortex-time (for the time being) 24/7 swimmer, algae eater, feisty, nipping summer breeder Pursed fish-lips press hard against it I mean, tall glass of water, I mean, them’s-fightin’-words reflection of Liberty Bell c u r v e s Strawberry popping pearl acid reflux slick oyster-tongue remembers Double O Seven warm […]
by Angela Tharpe Lover T is the Whitest Boy I’ve Ever Kissed & something about it feels precarious, like at any moment he might see my bonnet the care it takes to put it on, the patience & he will understand that he is underprepared. Lover T owns a house. He makes kombucha from scratch. […]
by Liz Kicak Dream Theory: Losing Teeth II spit teeth into my hands, until my hands overflow.I spit teeth into my hands like apple seeds.Apples so filled with seeds my hands overflow So I stuff teeth in my pockets until my pockets overflow.I stuff teeth in my pockets like pearls dropped from a strand.Like pearls […]
by Mary Beth Becker Devotional Sing now of the red sentence -finisher throned in my middle shaking with want Sing of clover bloom round like the green moons dan- -gling in June from the cottonwoods pearly gate keeper call my song a tithe to your holies you bead of the joy- ful mysteries body rosary marble she flicks and licks until an organ plays and wind gathers beneath us relinquishment how the bee falls lost in the snap -dragon drunk […]
by Elizabeth Fogle Breast Reconstruction and Other Bedtime Stories By graduated increments, my body makes roomin saline and scar tissueand the slow geometry of waiting as nerves sparkin vague alarm, something like déjà vu as the plastic expander folds, wedged between muscle and bone,mimicking a flightless wingbuilt out of snow shovelsand tucked all wrong. As I chase sleep on my preferred […]
by Trinity Richardson Heretic Genesis I have always feared birth—blasphemous something-from-nothing,soft head pushed through torn skin,the widening, the splittingfor the sake of anotherbecause it’s different when they’re yoursas if the ownership makes the difference My father choked my mother when she was pregnant with me,or gently placed his hands around her neck,or did absolutely nothing […]
by Anna Kegler Once, my sister and I went night snorkeling on vacation Our guide picked us up just after sunset. As he turned the car onto an unlit dirt road, I realized nobody knew we were there. We’d surely be blamed when our strangled bodies were found. How stupid they’d say we’d been. I […]
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THE FINAL SHEDDING
by Alex Bortell THE FINAL SHEDDING I hold yourhead underwater. An alibifor cumulus.Your electric currentcurtained. I castyou infeathers.Saintof the pocked lung.A sturgeonslithers along yourmesial. Wetting memory’stongue. Yougrip the soiled edgeof fiction and Iwatch theflood. Measuring distancebetween canyons. Loosening ourborders.We stopcounting hairpricking the dampfields ofstomach.Inspecting a fossilof someother body’sbetrayal. Hungeris a languageI am always learning. Identifiable […]
Gulf Stream Magazine 