New World Writing Quarterly

In Memory of the Blue Girl Sahar Khodayari

it is not a dou­ble-dog dare
to see this wide-eyed world anchored by
hat tricks between men in Iran
the bright blue branched wig and ochre over­coat cannot
shield your hushed hurry
you criss­cross the arena’s entrance
–more

Blindsided

Say there’s an acci­dent, a wreck I’m in
but didn’t cause. Say I hit my head, hard,
and see a blind­ing baf­fle­ment of stars
I can’t blink away. Say I try to stand
but dizzi­ness sits me back down. I wait
wob­bling –more

“Sometimes When we Touch” by Dan Hill drifts from the speak­ers in the wait­ing room. I have to look up the singer because I’ve for­got­ten, if I ever knew his name at all.

Tuning out the sap­pi­ness is impos­si­ble. I can’t focus on any­thing else as –more

Terminus

There were nev­er many trains for us to take
and most are long gone by now.
The big arrivals board is blank. Or broken.
The help desk went dark hours ago.

That scruffy local cross­es the decrepit hall
for anoth­er quick one at the bar.
He seems –more

Below the foot­bridge, traf­fic was an end­less wave. Sarge fragged a bot­tle over the chain­link. It land­ed in the crush­er of a pass­ing garbage truck, shattered.

“Your ride is here, don’t miss it,” he said, cock­ing a thumb at the reced­ing machine.

I –more

Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strict­ly in film and prints in a dark­room in her apart­ment. Her art has always been her top pri­or­i­ty and in this dig­i­tal world, she con­tin­ues to work with tra­di­tion­al wet film pro­cess­ing. She prefers –more

1. We weren’t sup­posed to be home, both of us feign­ing sick, under­wear down around some of our ankles. Senior year. Promises made to love each oth­er forever.

2. Morning announce­ments inter­rupt­ed by the turn­ing on of TVs, the large box­es anchored to –more

i 

When I awoke, I real­ized that both my con­tact lens­es and my moth­er were miss­ing, although at first I was far more con­cerned about the con­tact lens­es. After all, with­out them how much more dif­fi­cult would it be to find my Mom, not to men­tion our –more

The Color of Hunger

It’s New Year’s Day and the streets look hun­gover. In the back­seat, Malcolm and I have loaded in our French artist friends, Bullet and Stephen. They hold hands and mut­ter roman­tic bits we’d like to under­stand and mut­ter. Love talk in English –more

Resurrection

We are born, buried for a while, then spring up just as everything
is clos­ing. ~ John Ashbery

Judges marched back­wards up the steps. I saw it was time to ques­tion the trees. Now all the leaves lie brown in the ditch. Girls gone. The new­ly shoed hors­es –more

heat wave

heat wave day. a mar­riage pro­pos­al between the moth and the win­dowsill. it hov­ers an inch in the air. trapped between peel­ing ledge and rigid wall of blinds — a suf­fo­cat­ing union.

he, humanoid, top­less, wilts in the hot cen­tre of the room. like the –more

I’ve just about had all I’m going to take from this place. In the morn­ings it’s fog­gy, the clouds come in at night, low, cov­er every­thing with dew and wet­ness. And then by the time the sun comes up it’s already hot, humid­i­ty bring­ing sweat to my fore­head. –more

We parked our­selves on 26 acres in the woods on a lit­tle old moun­tain north of Myersville, MD in mid-March and only leave when absolute­ly nec­es­sary. Not much is nec­es­sary. Here we have assort­ed bod­i­ly vis­i­tors, plus Doug, who steals food from the birds, –more

In the entry­way, Debbie says, I have some­thing new to show you.

I fig­ure it’s a 75” flat screen or a shiny car in the garage. Then she tells me it’s in her room. And I know she means a new way we can fuck. Then I hear her mom call out from the –more

The Scourge and the Kiss

Dear Gov. Rick Snyder,

At age 74, I expect­ed my body to
change. To wilt. To fade. But I’m
a frail saltine spread with peanut
but­ter just for good humor. I expect
to fol­low road maps and rivers
greater and longer than –more

Outside my win­dow today it is rain­ing. Seven bum­ble­bees strug­gle against the drops. They strain to bear their own weight, emer­ald fronds of grass below ready to receive what pollen falls from their over­laden bod­ies, what hon­eyed –more

Triggers and Consequence

Even con­fuza­tion­al cur­tains drawn aside
manip­u­lat­ing the punch-up show stayed hidden
Fogged atmos­pheres, the con­coct­ed nar­ra­tives baf­fled audiences,
dis­tract­ed atten­tion, fooled under­stand­ing the maraud­ing scenes,
mutat­ing plots

In mul­ti­pli­ca­tions of –more

OFF THE PAGE

Finding a way
and life. Web

of soil, words
just nature’s

bird silent
body; petrel

fly­ing underwater.
From sink to river

we go quietly.

~

SOMEWHERE AND NOWHERE

Planning but settled,
and close – transit

rooms, rain windows,
num­ber­less rooms, making

too many sen­tences. I
start­ed –more

“Not just beau­ti­ful, though—the stars are like the trees in the for­est, alive
and breath­ing. And they’re watch­ing me.” Haruki Murakami

From a dis­tance, the first thing I noticed about Claudette and her hus­band Ezra is they both radi­at­ed a strange, –more

Nature, Nurture, Andersen, Freud

She’s not men­tioned in the tale—
the ugly duckling’s real,
as in bio­log­i­cal, mother.

Did she look the oth­er way
when a thief crept in to lift
the pre­cious egg? Was she bribed

with suc­cu­lent pondweeds
to grant –more