pray to nothing or maybe to the
video where the prime minister tells the
world that Franco’s finally dead where do
we go after fascism an american Golgotha
awaits I wish I had hung art on these
walls framed magazine
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Bryan D. Price ~ Crania Americana
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Kathryn Mayer ~ Vestigial Twin
Peter, the man at the diner with the growth on his face, finally saves up enough to have it removed in October. Opioid painkillers. Face bandaged. Immobilized at first, a few days – pees in one water bottle, drinks from another, chews on saltines.
In
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Jim Ross ~ Four Dreams
Dream 1 – Harvesting Eggs
I’m working on the egg harvest. Our first task is to create long, nearly flat bowls of birch (aka: birth) wood for use in gathering eggs. The second is reviewing ancient texts to guide our work.
We find eggs in two places. The ancient eggs we
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Michelle Ross ~ Mirrors
The house I was born in had two mirrors, one in the bathroom and one in the living room. The mirror in the living room was the length of the wall on which it hung. Etched in black on the mirror’s surface were mountains and forests of imposing pines.
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Under the Cherry Blossom Tree ~ Yukari Kousaka
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
A tiny girl dozes by the foot of the blooming cherry tree where my mother hanged herself. I pick her up gently. “Sakura, you know about the hua-po?” Mother asked when I was a little girl. “The ancient Chinese believed
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Raphael Kosek ~ Three Poems
Harmless Encounters
I dreamt fat flakes of snow
falling thickly in summer.
I dreamt I wore a bridal gown
while cleaning the house
as the guests arrived.
I dreamt I kissed an old friend
long dead, on the lips
and felt nothing.I turn and turn in this world
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Henry Alan Paper ~ Friday
When I asked him why he had made Aliya – that is, why he had decided to live in Israel for the rest of his life – and why, so uncharacteristically, he had decided to do so as an observant Jew – this is what he told me.
~
He was not at all a religious
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Eric Roy ~ Four Poems
On the Shoulder of September
First week of September, accused of touching a student
inappropriately, I was called to the principal’s office
on my off-period. Knot in my tie too tight, I didn’t dare
adjust it. He raised one finger, less to indicate a start, -
Chila Woychik ~ Waterfields
Riffles in the distance. The sound of wonder breaks along the shore. Rivers that twist and curl. Lakes tossing fish toward heaven, then pulling them back again. Waters coaxing thirsty wildlife near. The streams and ponds, smaller versions flashing
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Tahia Abdel Nasser ~ The Tea Picker
We swooped down in tea country. The mountains were cooler than Colombo. The tea hills rolled emerald-green, lush, and orderly. Mist rolled through the hills, tall slender trees swayed in welcome. They looked like animals gathering, bending, crouching
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Kevin Grauke ~ Five Poems
The Final Quarantine
“It don’t take long to kill things. Not like it does to grow.”
—Homer Bannon, in HudBulldozers dig a pit wider and
deeper than any swimming hole
and four cowhands on horseback
drive the diseased beasts down and
in until hide rubs against hide,
withers to thurl, flank to dewlap.
Necks strain above -
Jeff Friedman ~ Five Prose Poems
Not Everything Was in My Father’s Will
My father left me a CD with nothing in it and a record of all his closed accounts. He left me a hole in which to deposit old birds, the bust of the uncle he hated, old newspaper clippings of ads for clothing lines he was selling, the transistor radio
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John Grey ~ Two Poems
Like Day and Night
By day, the river’s for fishing.
Or canoeing.
Or swimming.
No bodies bloat up to the surface.But by night,
it’s a floating graveyard.
A carcass bobs against the banks.
An old man and his dog come across it
and call the cops.Whole families come
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Christopher Merkner ~ White People Swimming
Months after the celebrations of life, my wife invited a man to the house for lunch. I toasted four slices of wheat bread and unwrapped two slices of cheese from their plastic slips. He and I spoke about the absence of snow. I found his views exhausting.
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Jihoon Park ~ The Zookeeper’s Guide to Animals
The Tigers
Make sure the tigers’ blindfolds are on at all times. They will eat you, and each other, on sight. The only way our tigers can coexist is for them to be unaware of one another. If one of their blindfolds falls off, shoot that tiger immediately.
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Cezarija Abartis ~ The Next Day
Caroline drank her morning coffee, its darkness filling her mouth, coating her teeth, tongue, palate, filling for an instant, burning, closing off for an instant, closing everything off. Anton let out a meow like a knife slice to the flesh. He was
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Nate Lippens ~ Pompeii
Rudy and I talk on the phone late at night, often from one or two until dawn. He lives in New Orleans and I live in Wisconsin. Both of us have returned to our home states after decades away in New York, Los Angeles, and Berlin.
When I was still living
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Pavle Radonic ~ The Hearth
The Hearth (Montenegro)
The fucking of the sun had always irritated and wounded Bab. It was uncouth and seemed to her to be as unholy as the fucking of God, Jesus and even worse, the mother. The worst her father had ever cursed was the fucking of the goat.
Our house guest
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Michael Borth ~ The Tsar Bomba
It was not snow but pure ash
in the afterwhite of the sunyolk of the Tsar Bomba.
The people were gone, fast and deleted.
I walked in the supreme quiet.
The screams were inhaled by the amanhecer.
The troubles were simplified